


we are the wild youth

by iPhone



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: ...kind of, AU, Angst, Drama, F/F, Friends With Benefits, Romance, Smut, Tutoring, because they're more like acquaintances with benefits then they become friends, well you'll see
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-05
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:01:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23028211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iPhone/pseuds/iPhone
Summary: Beca needs some money to get out of Barden and move to LA as quickly as possible. It just so happens that an opportunity all but drops in her lap: one Chloe Beale, desperately in need of a tutor to pass her last two classes to graduate.
Relationships: Chloe Beale/Beca Mitchell
Comments: 161
Kudos: 575





	1. fever dream high

**Author's Note:**

> Rated M/E for depictions of coitus. This fic is an AU imagining of PP somewhat: Beca never joins the Bellas and is somewhat of a nerd, Chloe still stays back an extra three years, and there's backstory that was never part of the PP universe. But otherwise, it is set at Barden, Beca still loves music.
> 
> Fic title from “Youth” by Daughter. This fic is based on **[this gifset](https://isthemusictoblame.tumblr.com/post/190811702144/chloe-beale-rebel-without-a-cause-is-struggling).** After much debate, internal and external, I decided to post this fic in segments. This shouldn't be more than 3 or 4 parts. Maybe 5. Most of it is already done!

Beca just wants to graduate.

The deal she cut with her father is not the best deal in the world, but to him, a degree means something. Something meaningful. Meaningful enough that he’s willing to help her get the fuck out of Atlanta and move to New York. That kind of meaningful.

So in that sense, her degree is meaningful to her too. No time for fucking around.

But, senior year kind of means that she can start to take it easy. She’s _almost_ there. She just needs to continue keeping her guard up long enough to ensure that Jesse _still_ gets the hint she’s not interested in him and she just needs to _pass_.

Hence why this beginning-of-year party is an anomaly, but she’ll take it if there’s free alcohol and maybe the chance to unwind. Bedmate optional.

Beca isn’t one for parties. Definitely not one for house parties at a _frat_ house.

She supposes these are the people who will end up playing her music in the future, however. Peering around, she grimaces at the very-near-public sex happening right on a couch that looks a little _too_ used. A little too comfortable.

Start-of-term parties are always memorable in their own way. They’re almost formulaic in a sense. Guy gets girl, something valuable will be broken—maybe a television, maybe a heart—and something will go _wrong_.

Beca likes observing all of this from the outskirts while Jesse, who is the only person daring enough to drag her out of her apartment, floats away like the social butterfly he is.

It’s not that she hates parties, nor is she a recluse, Beca is just kind of tired of college at this point. She had promised her parents at least _two_ years in college before she could head out to Los Angeles and really fulfill her dreams, but it turns out that she kind of needs money for that. Money which she doesn’t really have even if she’s been saving up pennies and quarters since middle school.

School is a safety net. She’s been told that all her life, with no small measure of patronization.

It also kind of sucks that Beca inherited at least a portion of her father’s intelligence. The daughter of a professor? There was no way he was letting her leave Barden without at least degree. Realistically, she inherited his knack for school because she’s kind of good at it. Physics, at least, hasn’t been a problem. Or Calculus.

It’s just fucking boring and she doesn’t even intend on _using_ her degree. And she only chose something deeply rooted in science and math because she thought it would piss him off.

Many errors have been made. Miscalculated, even. Or perhaps more on point, horribly erroneous like a series of wrong notes in the middle of a symphony.

Beca could go on.

She can hear her father’s voice, somehow cutting through the raucous party and lodging deep in her head: “But your little music gigs, Beca? It’s a hobby. Science and math? That’ll get you jobs.” Then in the same breath, without fail: “It’s what your mother would want.”

The forced reminder makes Beca take another swig of cheap beer before she makes her way over to the keg for more. As she turns the corner, she stumbles, bumping into a shockingly solid body. As she drops her thankfully-empty cup, she reaches up to grab on to the arms that have come around her back to steady her.

“Thanks,” she murmurs, lifting her gaze to make some kind of eye contact when she realizes the body she’s pressed against doesn’t belong to yet another generic frat boy. Instead, she feels soft, feminine curves and the slightest hint of firm muscle beneath the fabric of a thin leather jacket.

Shockingly blue eyes stare back at her. “Hi,” she greets.

“Hi,” Beca replies, still stunned. “Um,” she steps back from the stranger’s space. Or... _somewhat_ of a stranger would be a more apt descriptor. She would be remiss if she didn’t acknowledge that she just nearly bowled over Chloe Beale whose last name just happens to be on at least two buildings around school. Chloe Beale who is devastatingly pretty with blue eyes to die for and red hair and a burning smile.

Chloe Beale who is staring at her like she’s seeing her for the first time.

(She probably is.)

“Beca, right?”

Beca swallows. “I—yeah. How…?” Beca shakes her head. “Sorry, I’m not usually this horribly awkward.”

Chloe smiles. “How are you, usually, then? Other than being the most talented radio host Barden has ever had.”

It’s the oddest interaction to be having with a stranger in the middle of a house party. Beca can barely hear her own thoughts.

Chloe seems to read her mind. “Want to go somewhere quieter?”

Beca has never agreed to a cliche more quickly in her life.

* * *

It doesn’t take long—in fact, Beca barely gets out the question “How do you know my name?” before Chloe is in her space and pulling her in for a bruising kiss. Beca’s body immediately thrums with excitement and repressed energy and she quickly pushes back at Chloe, determined to at least put up some small measure of a fight against Chloe’s immediate dominance over her.

But she quickly realizes that it feels so much better, letting Chloe take control like this—Chloe whom Beca had no idea even knew _she_ existed, let alone wanted to hook up with her.

Chloe’s breath is hot against her neck while she holds Beca against the dresser. “I’m going to fuck you so hard, Mitchell,” she breathes, voice dripping with promise and pure want.

Beca’s brain short-circuits then, a symphony of jangled notes and endless crescendos. She can only nod weakly, hands scrabbling up Chloe’s back and pulling at the thing fabric of her shirt uselessly before she grabs onto Chloe’s hair and pulls her in for another kiss.

Chloe groans and pushes back against Beca, tilting her further over the dresser and displacing bottles of cologne and accessories. Strong hands grab at her thighs and force her legs apart so Chloe’s hips can settle more firmly between Beca’s legs. The action alone sends shockwaves up Beca’s brain. Beca, who is no stranger to sex, realizes that she has never felt such strong arousal from _just_ kissing before.

“Are we going to have sex?” Beca asks before she can help herself. She immediately regrets the question when it leaves her mouth. “Because I want to,” she says quickly before she loses it or before Chloe thinks that she’s having doubts. She isn’t. It’s just overwhelming, being so taken and consumed by a girl she barely knows.

Not for lack of trying, Beca supposes.

Of _course_ , Beca has a stupid crush on Chloe Beale. It seemed like most people did, somehow. Chloe, popular by virtue of her wealth but also mysterious and aloof disposition, never seemed to be short on suitors.

A small measure of pride wells up in Beca before it is immediately replaced by a swooping tightening in her belly as Chloe’s teeth nip harshly at her neck. With the amount of suitors Chloe frequently wards off (and the smaller number that she seems to allow close to her), Beca assesses that it would also appear that Chloe didn’t need any encouraging at all. Much less direction.

Before Beca manages even a measly gasp or even a weak tug to Chloe’s hair, Chloe’s hands are already greedily grabbing at her hips, pushing and pulling at the fabric impatiently for a moment or so, getting a good grope in, before her fingers deftly find the button of Beca’s jeans.

Beca sucks in a breath.

It takes a moment, but Chloe pauses, lifting her head from her assault on Beca’s neck. Her eyes, dark and blown with desire, flicker with something nearly unrecognizable.

Beca’s eyes drift back down to Chloe’s lips in the ensuing silence.

“You’ve never had sex with a girl before, have you?” Chloe asks.

Beca blushes immediately, averting her eyes for a brief second before Chloe tilts her chin back up to catch her lips in a sweeping, full, wet kiss. It’s more romantic than it has any business being. Beca moans against her own will, lifting her hips up almost impatiently against Chloe’s still hand. She is so conscious of the ache between her legs. So conscious of how her previous encounters with men left her wanting and dissatisfied. Not all the time, but more often than not.

How she had always imagined what it would be like with a woman.

Chloe, maybe. Chloe, _specifically._ Chloe, who had occasionally seeped into her thoughts based on the occasional classes they shared together. Chloe, who ran around the track almost every morning, visible from Beca’s dorm window. Chloe, who had smiled at her just briefly from across the quad at the activities fair all those years ago and Beca hd simply just _turned away—_

Chloe, who is pressed against her, lips swollen from the force of their shared kisses.

Lips swollen from Beca.

“Beca?” Chloe asks, referring to Beca by her first name for the first time all evening.

“Yeah,” Beca rasps, hot against her newfound lover’s mouth.

It takes a few seconds for Beca to process sudden emptiness she feels—a lack of warmth, really—but she realizes belatedly that it is because Chloe is on her knees, pulling Beca’s jeans down her trembling legs. When Chloe looks up at her, fluttering long eyelashes, Beca feels an answering gush between her legs.

 _Fuck,_ Beca thinks with every last primal instinct coursing through her. _Fuck me._ She reaches out instinctively to thread her fingers through Chloe’s hair, swallowing at how natural it feels to tangle her hands in another girl’s hair. To enjoy it so much.

Chloe says nothing while she helps Beca step out of her jeans. The movements, though gentle and slow, do nothing to ease the growing tension gnawing at her stomach. She clenches again involuntarily and moans in response to her own actions causing Chloe to look up from where she still kneels in front of Beca.

For a moment, Beca feels powerful.

Then, Chloe’s fingertips gently hook into the elastic waistband of Beca’s underwear.

“Tell me how hard you want me to fuck you, Beca Mitchell,” Chloe murmurs, her voice permeating the thick fog of Beca’s brain. It almost stuns Beca into silence, but she realizes that what she wants even more than LA at that moment is Chloe’s fingers between her legs. Her tongue maybe. Lips. Beca’s hands through her hair, tangled all night.

The possibilities are seemingly endless.

“Hard,” she chokes out. “Just fuck me hard.”

Blue eyes flash with delight and the promise of everything to come.

* * *

She does come. Multiple times that night against the dresser. Then again when she invites Chloe back to her apartment. Against her own front door. In her bed, testing the strength of her boxspring mattress.

But none of that matters—what matters is how breathtaking Chloe looks when Beca unravels her. Breathless in her own way. Possessing Beca’s bed like she has nowhere else she’d rather be. The unmistakable tremble as Beca’s fingers sink into tight, wet heat. Choked off moans against Beca’s mouth.

And as Beca falls asleep, tired and spent, she thinks vaguely of the flash of red hair that fateful day at the activities fair. How she had pointedly avoided the pretty girl with blue eyes and red hair.

It feels like regret, chasing her into her dreams.

* * *

Beca isn’t one to dwell on things, however. She has no time for that kind of distraction, even if that distraction is the pleasant, fleeting sensation of Chloe’s lips pressing against the curve of her shoulder as she slips into a waking state.

There is something incredibly tender about the way Chloe’s fingers comb through her hair as she whispers a murmured goodbye into Beca’s ear. Her lips graze the sensitive skin on the shell of her ear, seeping into the peripheries of Beca’s dreaming state.

It feels like a dream, at least. All of it. Unattainable, super-senior Chloe Beale.

When Beca wakes up again, her bed is cold and empty and she’s pretty sure the aches coursing through her body have nothing to do with alcohol.

She peers blearily at her phone, unfortunately uncharged and nearly dead, and startles upon seeing that it is half past ten and she’s meant to meet a new student at eleven. She jolts out of bed and right into the shower, regrettably washing off all the remaining memories from the previous night. As she reaches between her own legs, she puffs out a heavy breath and tries not to think about how sure Chloe’s hands felt on her body the night before.

This new student is a special request from the Dean of Students himself, sent her way by her father. She had protested, barely, but the pretty monetary figure that had slid across her gaze had been enough to hold her attention.

_“Just twice a week for the year. Both semesters. This student needs to pass,” her father emphasizes._

_“Who is this student,” Beca demands, tucking the form into her jacket pocket. “Another entitled rich kid?”_

_Her father pinches his nose. “Look, I recommended you directly to Dean Sanders the moment I heard about this request. It’s from a special benefactor to the school and I know how much you need the money to go to L.A..”_

_“I wanted to go to L.A. three years ago.”_

_“Do you not want to go anymore?”_

_Beca bites her tongue to stop from saying anything else and looks away._

_“I know you’re an adult, Becs, but I have your best interests in mind. I just want to see you try. If you do this, I’ll double what the benefactor pays you. I’ll match it and double it.”_

_Beca can hardly believe her ears. It’s a lot of money. Enough to be considered “safe”, even. “Seriously?”_

_“Seriously.”_

Beca nearly trips multiple times on the way to the diner—an odd background for a tutoring session—but she somehow makes it there with a minute to spare. She realizes she has no idea who she’s even meeting with and slowly slides into the closest booth, keeping an eye out for anybody who looks especially lost.

She sits uncertainly for at least fifteen minutes, downs an entire cup of coffee, and fends off awkward inquiries from the server before she pulls out her phone intent on calling her father and giving him a piece of her mind. On cue, she gets a text.

_**Unknown  
**Hey, my dad gave me this number._  
_You’re my tutor, right?  
Rebecca?_

Beca groans.

**Beca**  
_hey, yep i’m your tutor.  
_ _I’m at Carl’s, just got a booth at the back_

The door jingles somewhere in the background and Beca glances up to meet Chloe Beale’s gaze dead-on.

“You’re fucking joking,” Beca mutters.

Chloe, for her part, does _not_ look pleased at all as she tosses her bag into the booth before sliding in across from Beca.

“Small world,” Chloe comments.

“You’re telling me.”

Chloe looks like she might say something else and Beca braces herself for the potential innuendo or lust-laden comment, but nothing comes. Instead, Chloe simply folds her hands and watches Beca intently, looking every bit like an innocent college student with a desire to pass her class.

Beca’s gaze flickers down to the neatly folded fingers.

When she looks back up, Chloe’s expression morphs into one that makes Beca swallow nervously.

“Are you nervous?” Chloe asks. “It’s just me,” she says in a tone that implies that she knows exactly what inappropriate thoughts are floating through Beca’s mind.

Beca ignores that, both the words and the _tone_ Chloe uses, and pulls out her notebook and binder. “You’re in calculus two...then statistics next semester?” Chloe nods. “Those are usually first-year requirements, how are you getting away with this? Is this a pre-med degree?”

Chloe smiles—a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “When your father’s name is on the school’s med school building, you kind of get things handed to you no matter how much you want to fight it. I can only control so much.”

Beca scoffs before she can help herself. “Well, I don’t know if that’s entirely true. I think that there are things out of our control sometimes, but there are definitely things within our control.” _Like leaving calculus and statistics until the end_. _Like sleeping together and wanting to do it again, but resisting._

Chloe gazes at her with renewed interest. “You’re a tutor, huh?”

“Looks like it.”

“And my dad hired you.”

Beca shrugs. “Kind of...so I guess your dad will kill me in front of the entire student body if we don’t do this.” She clicks her pen. “Come on, show me your assignments.”

“I really don’t want to do what he wants,” Chloe says, fluttering her eyes at Beca. “Want to do something else instead?”

Beca scowls. “I’m your tutor, whether you like it or not.”

“Fuck that.”

Beca tries not to smile at that. Chloe has such a pleasant speaking voice and a generally pleasant expression on her face at all times that it isn’t hard to see why she’s probably one of the most well-liked people on campus. So well-liked that it is often overlooked that she’s going for a third round of her senior year.

Still, _professionalism_. Beca can do that, kind of. She tutored worse people in high school. “Let’s get this over with, okay?”

It is entirely the wrong thing to say. Chloe’s smile widens and she leans forward, her shoulders hunched like a predator just about to pounce. “That’s not what you were saying last night.”

“I...oh my God.” Beca purses her lips and looks around hurriedly before settling on the glass of water to her side. Grabbing it, she sips it delicately for a few long moments while avoiding Chloe’s gaze and quenching the sudden dryness in her throat.

The cool water sliding down her throat is a nice thing to focus on.

She’s not focusing on anything else. Not the phantom sensation of Chloe’s hands ghosting up her sides. Not the phantom sensation of Chloe making her hold on to her own headboard. Not the phantom sensation of Chloe’s lips against her thighs, leaving marks and hot, wet kisses.

Not the very _real_ sensation from Chloe’s eyes boring a hole into her forehead, like she can see right into the recesses of Beca’s minds. Every last dark, lustful thought.

But the moment ends before Beca can really process everything, like how part of her wants to shove everything off the table so she can climb over and straddle Chloe’s lap.

Chloe sighs, opens her textbook, and points out the series of problems she has to complete for the week. “There,” she mutters.

Math—math, Beca can do. Calculus. Statistics.

Chloe, not so much.

(Even though she already did.)


	2. don't leave me tongue tied

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tutoring is going well, all things considered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from grouplove's "tongue tied" or the glee cast cover if you want.

Beca _knows_ Chloe is intelligent. Beca wouldn’t hold it against her if the opposite were true because Chloe _also_ wants to work hard. She just knows it.

It’s just that Chloe seems hell-bent on making _Beca’s_ life particularly hard.

“Okay, I _know_ you understood this just a few days ago. I watched you do that entire set of problems.”

Chloe grins at her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Beca stares, baffled at the array of papers before her. “I don’t know how you did this.”

“I just really don’t understand it.”

“Your father—”

Chloe’s expression darkens immediately. “I don’t care what he wants,” she says quickly. "He doesn't control my life." She stands from the chair pulled up to Beca’s desk and instead moves to lie down comfortably on Beca’s bed, looking supremely comfortable.

Beca rolls her eyes to her ceiling and prays for patience.

It is only the second week—end of the second week, really—of tutoring Chloe and she is already near her rope’s end. “You have an assignment coming up. I can’t help you with that, Chloe.”

“I know.”

“It’s worth like...a fifth of your grade. That’s twenty percent.”

“I know what a _fifth_ is, Beca.”

“I’m really not sure what you know anymore,” Beca exclaims, pointing out the mess of formulas and half-completed equations. “What else are you taking this semester?”

“A literature course and some other elective,” Chloe answers, still staring blankly up at Beca’s ceiling. Beca pulls up patience from the last ounces of her reserves.

“Are you purposefully failing those classes too?”

At that, Chloe sits up. “What are you talking about?”

Beca straightens and attempts to look tall. “I know you’ve taken all these classes before. The math ones at least. They’re literally the only ones you have left to get your degree. You could have graduated by now,” Beca points out unnecessarily. “Maybe with two degrees, somehow. Or at least you would have made use of the fact that you have two majors going on.”

Chloe sits up, looking thoroughly disgruntled. “Oh, you know everything about my life, do you?”

“Why are you _trying_ to stay?” Beca asks, somewhat incredulously. “Don’t you want to get out of here? Make something of your life?”

Chloe shoots her an annoyed glance. “You literally sound like my dad right now. Wow.”

Beca blinks and suddenly feels as if she is floating back into her own body. “Chloe, I’m not—”

“You are. It’s okay. I’ve heard it all. From him, from my mom. It's...whatever.”

It isn’t that Chloe sounds overtly defeated but the words themselves are enough to make a pang rush through Beca’s chest. “I’m sorry, that wasn’t appropriate,” she murmurs.

_I know the feeling all too well._

And another thought—

_We’re the same._

With that in mind, Beca returns to her own work, unable to do more than file that away for later. Maybe never to return to that thought. It’s a lot for a Thursday afternoon.

Chloe tucks her bottom lip between her teeth as she contemplates Beca from her perch on Beca’s bed. She begins to sit up slowly. “You could totally make it up to me though.”

“How?” Beca asks distractedly, writing down some corrections and explanations to go through with Chloe later. “Wait,” she says quickly. “ _I_ don’t have to make anythi…” she trails off upon actually looking up and catching the very pointed and heated expression Chloe is shooting her. “Uh,” she fumbles with her pen. “ _No_ ,” she says firmly. “I’m not going to…” she glances at her door as if wary that one of her roommates is about to walk past. “I’m not going to have sex with you again,” she hisses.

“Uh huh,” Chloe says, standing slowly.

Beca puts down her pen. “I’m not.” She quickly crosses her arms over her chest, not missing the way Chloe’s eyes drift down to her chest. “Chloe,” she warns half-heartedly. “ _Chloe Beale._ ”

“A break,” Chloe suggests, reaching out to rub Beca’s shoulders as she moves to stand behind her, leaving Beca’s line of sight. Beca’s heart races uncontrollably despite the pleasurable sensation flowing through her shoulders. “A short one.” Her breath ghosts Beca’s ear as she leans down. “Or a long one, I don’t mind.”

Beca’s posture slackens as Chloe’s fingers knead into her shoulders expertly. “You’re going to get us in trouble.”

“With who?” Chloe asks softly, leaning down to press a kiss against Beca’s neck, then another when Beca doesn’t protest. “Nobody’s here. Just you and me,” she whispers. An intimate secret between the two of them.

Their own little world.

“Just…” Beca’s eyes flutter shut as Chloe’s hands move down to cup her breasts with achingly precise movements. “Make it quick,” she rasps in a last ditch attempt to regain some control on the situation. With each heaving breath she takes, she presses her chest into Chloe’s hands, much to Chloe’s delight.

Chloe’s laugh is playful, yet dark. It makes all kinds of heat shoot straight between Beca’s legs. “As the tutor commands.”

* * *

Thus far, Chloe has barely taken instruction from Beca seriously, so Beca isn’t sure why she had expected it from her at all.

Her earlier _make it quick_ demand had been nothing but a smokescreen. It had been a show, a farce perhaps, of Chloe letting Beca think she had any authority near her when there was a bed so close to them.

If freshman-year Beca could see her now.

Chloe is anything but quick. She is thorough and precise, with how deeply she presses her tongue between Beca’s legs.

“Please,” Beca begs, not recognizing her own voice, laced with all kinds of desire and lust. “Chloe, _please_.”

Chloe hums, nipping around the soft skin of her inner thigh. Her teeth, blunt and even, drag across Beca’s flesh leisurely like Chloe has all the time in the world to do this. To taste every last drop of Beca.

“Please what?” she murmurs after kissing her way back up Beca’s body. “Tell me. Tell me what to do.”

Beca’s mind stutters to a stop, suddenly unable to form coherent words of any kind. A deep, pitiful whine escapes her instead when Chloe’s hips settle firmly between her legs, parting them further.

“How about this?” Chloe suggests, dragging her fingers up Beca’s slit teasingly before rubbing firm circles against her aching clit.

Chloe is full of good suggestions, Beca thinks as a final parting thought before she is nodding vigorously and pulling Chloe in for a deep, messy kiss. As surely as Chloe's tongue pushes into her mouth, Chloe's fingers gently ease their way through Beca's folds with familiarity. Beca groans deeply, arching her body right up into Chloe's, trying not to pump her hips too impatiently. She _tries_ , but she's not much better at being patient.

Chloe nips along her jaw, alternating between sharp grazes of her teeth and soothing strokes of her tongue. Beca can vaguely make out a pattern of sorts, trying to ground herself in a rhythm of some kind.

"Stop thinking," Chloe mumbles before she captures Beca's lips again.

Somewhere behind them, Beca’s notebook flutters from the wind gently blowing through the open window.

* * *

It is only later that Beca accidentally picks up Chloe's phone. She sees a long message from _Dad_ and the length makes her think that it is her own phone. It is only as she sweeps her hair back and focuses her bleary eyes on the message that she sees words like 'clinic' and 'responsibility' and 'disappointment' that it occurs to her that this is in fact not her phone. She glances over her shoulder to see Chloe watching her tiredly, much of the previous bliss now wiped completely from her face. 

"Sorry," Beca murmurs as Chloe curls an arm over her. She thinks Chloe is reaching for the phone. "I didn't realize..." she trails off as Chloe casually loosens Beca's grip from her phone and lets it tumble to Beca's carpeted floor.

"I'll respond to him later," Chloe says, putting her hand low on Beca's abdomen. "I'm busy right now." 

Beca can't disagree with that and soon forgets about anything else.

* * *

One-on-one time with Chloe isn’t what Beca anticipated for her final year at Barden.

Chloe gives Beca the impression that she has dreams of her own.

Beca would never presume that a person _didn’t_ have dreams, but there is something about Chloe that Beca longs to figure out; something that she longs to unlock.

It’s in the way Chloe’s gaze unfocuses sometimes. How she stares at her textbook without really looking. It’s in the way Chloe sighs and pulls out a novel on dreary days, reading instead of studying despite Beca’s feeble protests. It’s in the way Chloe smiles when she listens to music, like each emotion courses through her freely—the most free she’s ever felt.

The last one, Beca identifies with the most. She sees a lot of herself in Chloe’s demeanor. She forgets often that Chloe is older than her by three years—it seems like nothing, after all, in the grand scheme of their lives.

She slips sometimes in her own thoughts, wandering and wandering until she finds herself imagining what Chloe would be like as a friend.

She longs to ask—longs to ask between hurried trysts, books shoved to the floor in Beca’s living room; longs to ask when Chloe’s breath washes across her neck in steady deep breaths—she longs to ask whether they could be friends, even as they slip further and further from any sense of normalcy.

“What?” Chloe murmurs, barely looking up from her calculator.

Beca bites her lip. “Nothing,” she replies quietly.

It really is nothing. Beca intends on keeping it that way, at least.

* * *

**Chloe  
** _hey, want to grab a coffee?_

**Beca  
** _we don’t have a session today_

**Chloe  
** _i know, dork_

**Beca  
** _ok_

* * *

"I'm not really a fan of coffee anyway," Chloe murmurs before she presses a deep, lingering kiss against Beca's waiting mouth. Beca, still trying to catch her breath, stutters out a gasp, arching deliciously against Chloe's body like she has nowhere else in the world to be. Somewhere, faintly, she knows they should stop. She should stop Chloe's hand from travelling down between her legs again. She should stop her own body from reacting so insistently; she should stop herself from spreading her legs further, but she can't. She can't do more than be helpless for Chloe's touch; she can't do more than crave this visceral form of intimacy. The primal urges that well up from deep within her whenever she gets so much within touching distance.

"Beca?" Chloe asks, voice low and wanting.

Beca breathes out deep, more awake than ever. "Yeah," she murmurs.

"Tell me you want me again." 

"God, yes." 

Beca can't say that she's a big fan of coffee anymore either.

* * *

“I didn’t know you were into this stuff,” Chloe says one day in November. As it nears the end of the Fall semester, Beca finds herself more frantic than ever, thus more clumsy. More accepting of people like Chloe specifically into her life and into her personal space.

Like _now_ , with Chloe lounging at Beca’s bedroom desk, making herself comfortable at Beca’s computer.

“Hey,” Beca chastises. She stands and pulls her headphones away from Chloe’s head. “No touching.” She quickly closes her laptop, feeling a strange rush of embarrassment despite the knowledge that all she wants to do is share music with the world one day.

Somehow the thought of Chloe’s judgment means more than anything Beca could have ever imagined for herself.

Chloe pouts. “Sorry, it was open.” Beca frowns a moment longer. “I’m sorry,” Chloe emphasizes, looking apologetic and sincere. “I didn’t mean to be so nosy with your stuff.”

“Well that ‘stuff’ is my future, okay?” It bursts out of Beca before she can stop herself and she flushes, embarrassed. Not many people even _know_ about this, with the exception of Jesse, Luke who graduated, her dad, and like two other people whom Beca deemed worthy (and who had _wanted_ to listen to her music).

“I didn’t mean...” Chloe trails off, correctly assessing that Beca isn’t one to dwell on embarrassing moments or outbursts. Beca appreciates that. “Did you ever play this while you were the campus radio host?” Chloe asks. “Or other…” Chloe contemplates her words. “Mixes?”

“Some,” Beca says vaguely. When she looks up she realizes Chloe is watching her intently, causing her to blush furiously under all the attention Chloe is giving her.

“Why aren’t you still working there this year?” Chloe wonders.

“Because I’m leaving and it isn’t worth tying myself down to that place,” Beca replies shortly.

Her words strike a chord between the both of them, harsher than Beca intends but words were never her forte, hence the multitude of lyric-less arrangements she has sitting on her harddrive.

In the ensuing silence, Beca hesitantly looks up to meet Chloe’s eyes from across the table. Chloe looks unphased, which is unnerving on its own.

But Beca realizes that she looks _sad_.

“I—”

“Oh, it’s just—” Chloe laughs and cuts her off quickly. “Bummer, I would have enjoyed hearing your shows. Nice study breaks. I think you’re very talented, by the way. Just an observation.”

Beca isn’t sure what to say to all of that, so she chances another glance at Chloe who looks even more embarrassed.

Chloe looks away, an atypical blush creeping across her cheeks.

Beca exhales at the sight—an intriguing and appealing sight to be sure—and tries to will away the heat rising in her cheeks as well. She’s sure her cheeks are red. “Thank you,” she finally murmurs, keeping her emotions in check.

So much for normalcy.

“I do think you’re very talented, by the way,” Chloe says before she leaves that evening. “I didn’t mean to pry, but I think it’s cool. Like super cool that you’re committed to what you want.”

“I...yeah. I, sorry for snapping. I guess I kind of just don’t really share this stuff with people.”

Chloe smiles at her, leaning against the doorframe. “Well, if you ever need another pair of ears.”

Beca swallows, unsure where the sudden urge to kiss Chloe comes from. She tamps it down and stares at the center of Chloe’s nose. “Thank you.”

Chloe grins at her for a few moments longer before she slings her bag over her shoulder and finally makes her way down the hallway. “Bye Beca,” she singsongs from down the hall.

* * *

Beca can _hear_ Chloe in her music. It’s in the melodies and the harmonies. It’s in the downbeats. The offbeats.

It’s in _everything_ , permeating through the very essence of her work.

She pulls her headphones down around her neck, pressing her forehead against her palms.

 _Shit_.

* * *

“I have an idea,” Beca says, dropping her bag by Chloe’s feet. She stands over Chloe who is hunched over her books in her favorite corner of the library.

“What’s that?” Chloe asks, lifting her head slowly to smile at Beca. Her gaze tracks down Beca’s body slowly making Beca somehow feel severely underdressed despite the thick sweater and overcoat she’s wearing.

She frowns, drawing the lapels of her coat closer together. “A proposition, if you will,” Beca drawls.

Chloe’s eyes seem to glimmer, making Beca’s heart race more than she could have ever anticipated given their surroundings. “What is it, Bec?” she repeats in a less suggestive tone. The nickname tumbles from her mouth easily, like she had been saying it all her life. Beca can’t say she minds.

“I...made some study mixes for you,” Beca says, feeling her face grow hot at the immediate and excited smile that stretches across Chloe’s lips. She immediately holds her hands out in front of Beca, expectation written in her eyes. “But, I’ll only give you a new one each time you finish a practice exam.”

Chloe groans, dropping her hands. “ _Beca_ ,” she whines in a tone that reminds Beca of just two weeks ago. Chloe’s voice echoing in the communal shower stalls. Beca’s heart racing at the thought of being caught. Beca’s heart racing at the sight of Chloe coming apart beneath her hands. “Come on, I got this.”

“It’s incentive,” Beca argues.

“It’s _torture_ ,” Chloe replies dramatically. She sighs. “But something is better than nothing. Gimme.”

Beca, pleased by the reception to her idea, hands Chloe the precious USB. It touches her more that Chloe _wants_ to listen to her music—that Chloe _wants_ to hear what she has to say. Granted, it’s through music, but Chloe, more than anybody thus far has proven to be a staunch supporter.

A cheerleader, even.

A friend.

Though the definitive period at the end of that assessment feels less and less like a period and more like a question mark. Beca is pretty sure that even if she weren’t considering the extremely inappropriate circumstances under which they are continuing to sleep with each other, she’s sure that they aren’t just _friends_ anymore, if they ever were.

It’s frustrating.

“Hey, Bec?” Chloe asks while pulling out her laptop. Beca tries to clear her head and hums in response. “My...parents are wondering if you want to come over for dinner sometime next week. Probably Wednesday or Thursday night. I know you don’t have night class or anything.”

It isn’t what Beca is expecting at all. “They _what_?”

“It’s just, um...I guess they want to thank you? For helping me.”

“They’re already paying me.”

“Just come, Beca,” Chloe says with a gentle smile. “They won’t bite. Much.” She laughs, a little hollowly. “They might not even notice you’re there if I’m being honest.”

Beca wants to inquire more, but it is that moment when Jesse materializes at her side, smiling at both her and Chloe like they’re all great friends. Beca chances a glance at Chloe and notes her carefully-neutral expression.

“What?” Beca asks, attempting not to be abrupt. She tries, really, but she’s still kind of reeling from the fact that Chloe asked her to literally meet her parents. She feels hot all over and quickly pulls off her scarf.

“Bec, it’s USC. They got back to me. I’m in. Early admittance. And since—”

“They what? Oh my God! Jesse, that’s amazing!”

She pulls him in for a hug, uncaring that a passing library staffer shushes her. Behind her, Chloe giggles.

“I—I guess you just weren’t answering your phone and you mentioned you had tutoring, so…” Jesse steps back and smiles again at Chloe, albeit a bit more hesitantly.

“That’s me,” Chloe says. “I’m the tutoring. Congrats by the way,” she says sincerely, with no small measure of kindness. “I don’t really know you that well, but that’s amazing, friend of Beca’s.”

“I know,” he says, relieved. “I mean, I guess I didn’t know until just now. But I’m getting out of here.”

“That’s—yeah. Wow,” Beca murmurs.

“You will too, Beca.”

“I have to,” she says without really thinking about it.

Something shifts in the air, but it is only perceptible to Beca. Or so she thinks. She forces a smile on her face and when she turns back to face Chloe, she sees the same expression mirrored back at her.

She forgets to give Chloe a response.

* * *

**Chloe  
** _Titanium?? You really shouldn’t have_

**Beca  
** _what do you mean_

**Chloe  
** _That song used to be my lady jam_   
_;) if you know what i mean_

**Beca  
** …

**Chloe  
** _it’s making a comeback tonight, i guess_

**Beca  
** _Chloe!_   
_Do not use my homework-incentive music to get yourself off!_

* * *

(It is admittedly kind of hot, the thought that Chloe gets off to that song. Hotter still, the thought that Chloe’s going to get off to _Beca’s_ spin on the song.

It’s kind of hot because she can _see_ Chloe vividly - the flush in her cheeks and the swell of her lips. Somehow more swollen even without Beca’s ministrations because she’s biting her own lip and trying not to cry out or scream or moan or whimper.

It’s the kind of hot that makes Beca put her music on, bite her lip, and slowly push her hand down her underwear.

That kind of hot.

But Beca kind of just wants to know if Chloe likes her music.

It’s weird.)

* * *

(To be fair, things have been increasingly weird and Beca has no idea how to deal with it.)

* * *

Beca isn’t sure how to explain it, but the rift between her and Chloe only seems to grow over the next week. Chloe cancels tutoring and Beca begrudgingly agrees only because she _knows_ Chloe actually does understand the content. The more selfish part of her wants to see Chloe, however.

She misses her.

It’s _weird_.

What’s weirder is that she _does_ end up seeing Chloe on one of their scheduled tutoring days and it is completely accidental. Beca ends up volunteering at the community center at the behest of one of her Residual Heat co-workers. Well, she had _started_ volunteering over the summer. It ended up carrying through to the rest of the semester.

She’s still brushing glitter off her hands, a sneak attack from one of her more rowdy students (and she’s dreading cleaning the glitter off her laptop when she gets home), when she sees Chloe through the glass doors leading to the dance studio.

Chloe, with her hair up in a messy ponytail, wearing a plain white t-shirt and black leggings, somehow looking more attractive than ever.

Beca gulps, watching Chloe gently guide a little girl’s arms into the right positions, clapping excitedly when her student seemingly succeeds in nailing down a specific series of moves. Beca gapes, unsure where her surprise comes from _really_. It’s not really that she has trouble merging this image of Chloe with the one she has in her mind (relaxed demeanor and leather jacket, easy smile to send Beca’s heart into a tailspin), but it’s just that this is so…

This is _more_ like Chloe Beale—both the image of her in her mind and the Chloe she has come to know slowly over time. It is indescribably sweet and tender, the way Chloe exudes a certain gentleness.

Beca finds herself smiling the more she watches Chloe, so much so that she doesn’t even realize Chloe has spotted her until Chloe raps sharply on the glass pane and raises an eyebrow at her. Beca startles and mouths a _hello_ at Chloe, waving awkwardly. Chloe waves back, albeit hesitantly and glances around like she isn’t quite certain if she _wants_ Beca to know this about her.

“I’ll just go,” Beca says quickly. Chloe frowns, gesturing at her ear. “Oh,” Beca says awkwardly. She gestures with her hands. “I’ll just—” she points towards the exit. “Go,” she finishes lamely.

Chloe shrugs, waving at Beca and returning to her class.

The thing is, Beca ends up waiting for Chloe. She waits because for some reason, a force compels her to stay and she’s kind of tired of fighting it. It is only fitting that Chloe rounds the corner just as Beca finishes listening to a new song she had been tinkering with over the past week—it is fitting because the song, like so many others, reminded her so much of Chloe.

Chloe is surprised to see her waiting on a bench right by the exit with her bicycle. “You stayed,” she comments as she nears.

“I’m uh…” Beca grips her bike to steady herself. “I didn’t know you taught here too.”

Chloe’s cheeks are flushed, not from the cold, but from embarrassment. As if she has just been caught doing something she shouldn’t. “It’s just for some spare change and I enjoy it.”

“That’s…” Beca still sees the vision of Chloe bending down, ruffling her student’s hair, looking cheerful, affectionate, and most importantly, carefree. _Beautiful_. “Nice,” she says instead. “That’s nice of you,” she reiterates.

Chloe pauses like she expects Beca to say something else, but relief crosses her face when nothing else comes. “Thank you.” Chloe’s brow furrows and some tension appears to leave her shoulders. “What were you doing here?”

“I volunteer at the community center.” Beca shrugs. “Just to pass time. Teaching kids how to use Garageband. It’s almost like I work in an Apple store, but less fancy. They spend most of their time figuring out if there are fart noises in the stock audio.”

“You’re an angel aren’t you?” Chloe reaches out to squeeze her cheek, an action that Beca finds herself not shying away from to her own surprise. “Do you have another mix for me then?”

Beca swats her hand away playfully and leans out of Chloe’s grasp. “ _No_ , because you haven’t given me your completed practice exam.”

Chloe grumbles and draws her sweater around her shoulders. “I thought they were made specially for _me_.”

 _They are_ , Beca thinks immediately but quickly stifles the thought by clenching her fist in her jacket pocket. “With conditions,” she says instead, attempting a grin. “Need a ride?” Beca asks when she notices Chloe simply stuffing her hands into her pockets.

Chloe eyes her bike. “On that?”

“You can wear my helmet.”

Chloe mock-gasps, but accepts the helmet nonetheless. “Fine,” she says. “But only because I live like two blocks away and you seem responsible.”

“I’m very responsible. As your tutor, your safety is my responsibility.”

“Is it now? I thought education was your responsibility.”

“I’m making it my responsibility,” Beca declares. “Get up here.”

“You do care!”

 _More than you can imagine_.

Somehow they manage: Chloe tells her where her apartment is; Chloe sits on her handlebars and Beca peddles as steadily as she can; it is quiet for the most part, save for Chloe’s giggling whenever Beca swerves to avoid a rock; it is oddly romantic.

Beca isn’t afraid of falling, not with her chin hooked over Chloe’s shoulder so she can see as best as she can.

Her heart pounds nonetheless, with Chloe’s warmth enveloping her.

Chloe smells like cherry blossoms and sunshine.

It’s a different kind of falling.

“Come in?” Chloe asks, eyes bright with promise and more.

Beca knows she shouldn’t—she really shouldn’t. Not when all these feelings, new and old, ripple inside her with a multitude of swirling uncertainties.

She shouldn’t take Chloe’s hand and follow her up to her apartment. She shouldn’t let Chloe’s lips latch onto her neck while her hands hastily push at the clothes on Beca’s body. She shouldn’t let Chloe guide her gently into the shower—she shouldn’t beg for _more_ when Chloe’s fingers slip inside her aching cunt.

She shouldn’t, but her body cries out for Chloe in more ways than one and she helpless to do anything more than be swept away by the tide of her emotions.

Beca _shouldn’t_ stay overnight, something they have been careful about not doing in the past, but she does. She folds herself into Chloe’s arms and falls asleep to the sound of Chloe’s deep, even breaths in her ear. She lets her body sink into Chloe’s touch.

She stays because she’s tired of fighting the one thing that has made her feel the most _alive_ she’s ever felt in her four years at Barden.


	3. it's been so damn hard on my own

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beca realizes that she had been falling for Chloe all this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from A R I Z O N A's "Let Me Know". Fic "EP"/Playlist [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5jP3zLWdFLCltl2bsehWXO?si=37I0wDoGQnKP8B-K94mbiQ).

It is the morning that follows, a sleepy, cold morning, that Beca gets that long-awaited email from her boss. It is an email telling her that his contact in New York pulled through.

Beca is wide awake.

Sammy ended up sending his contact some of Beca’s original stuff, finally deeming it ‘good enough’ to be viable, and well—

A job opportunity— _no_ , better. A job _offer_ at a record label as a junior producer.

She finally gets to leave. She’s going to leave once she graduates and she’s going to finally pursue her dreams.

She drops her arm back onto the bed, suddenly more conscious and aware of her other arm, trapped beneath Chloe’s body as she snoozes next to her. Beca ends up lying awake until Chloe slowly awakens as well, stretching contentedly like a cat in sunshine against Beca’s side. There is a distinct youthfulness to Chloe’s features this early in the morning, Beca thinks—like for once Chloe isn’t plagued by her past, her present, or future.

“What?” Beca asks when Chloe stares at her with a content, sleepy expression on her face. It makes Beca nervous, but she can’t pinpoint why.

“Nothing,” Chloe says finally and instead surges up to press a deep, wanting kiss against Beca’s lips, eviscerating all other wake-up calls Beca has ever received in her life.

* * *

“I have a question,” Chloe says as they mull over formulas, proofs, and endless all-day breakfast at Carl’s later that day.

Without looking up, Beca sighs. “Chloe we just went over basic derivatives and you definitely—”

Chloe’s hand comes up to still Beca’s hand. Beca freezes.

“Do you and um,” Chloe hesitates. It’s the first time, really, that Beca has seen Choe somewhat flustered or nervous. Chloe seems to steel herself. “Do you and that uh, Jesse kid have like...a thing going on?”

It’s clear that this has been bothering Chloe to some extent, if the furrow in her brow and the questioning tilt in her eyes are anything to go by. If Beca weren’t mulling over how cute Chloe looked right then, she’d have burst out laughing right away. That being said, her laugh comes out short and delayed and entirely too awkward for her to really save anything about the situation.

Chloe is evidently taken aback and she leans back in the booth and crosses her arms, their homework forgotten. “I’m serious,” Chloe says, verging very close to a pout.

“I’m serious too,” Beca says, still laughing. “Where the fuck did you get that from?”

“I don’t know, you guys just seem…” Chloe bites her lip, looking more attractive than she has any right to be. “Close.”

“That’s what you get when a guy like Jesse forces his way into your life and somehow sticks around for three and a half years.”

“Is that what I did?” Chloe asks, her tone decidedly different from just a few moments ago. “Force my way into your life.”

"No," Beca says immediately. 

It's something closer to fate. Maybe destiny.

But it's not like those things are real anyway, so Beca can't really do much than meet Chloe's questioning gaze head-on.

* * *

**Chloe  
** _just checking that we’re ok  
_ _Bec?_

A part of Beca threatens to burst—like she could really just spill everything she’s been feeling to Chloe right then and there. Her fingers long to type out an excessively long message, just to get her point across and just to expunge all of the emotions she currently feels.

Like the emotions dangerously resembling a dumb, gross crush on Chloe Beale.

She's sure Chloe _knows_ by now. Chloe is the kind of girl who knows these things, likely from experience. Even more likely that she just has a better grasp on other people's emotions compared to Beca's own emotional bandwidth.

 **Beca  
** _Yeah, we’re ok_

"God, she definitely knows," Beca mumbles.

 **Chloe  
** _and you’re still coming for dinner w/ my parents?_

There it is.

Beca swallows, having momentarily forgotten about it. She isn’t sure why the nerves seem to bubble up in her more than they normally would.

 **Beca  
** _Yeah_

It isn’t like Chloe is her _girlfriend_ and she’s meeting her parents for the first time. Just her tutoring subject. Beca is a tutor first and foremost.

Nothing wrong with that.

She’ll just make sure to maintain some distance between now and then.

* * *

So it turns out that distance is good, but Beca hadn’t thought about how distance would be completely eviscerated considering she is quite literally at Chloe’s parents’ house. Distance _should_ be good. Or it _would_ be if Beca weren’t such a chump and ringing the doorbell to Chloe’s massive house. Her _father’s_ massive house.

Beca always thought her own father had a big house, but she supposes when Chloe’s father is a _doctor_ -doctor, there’s a little bit more money than an English professor. Like a literal real doctor who has probably saved lives. That’s more than Beca can say about her father and his books.

She’s never going to give her father trouble for the size of his house again.

Chloe greets her at the door with a relieved expression. “I’m glad you came!” Chloe exclaims. She reaches out for Beca’s hand and laces their fingers together. The shock of holding Chloe’s hand makes Beca’s reply come in a lame, delayed fashion.

“You were the one who invited me,” Beca says quickly. “Of course I was going to come.”

“I know you were thinking of standing me up,” Chloe singsongs, still holding on to Beca’s hand as she drags her through a massive foyer and into the kitchen.

Beca can’t really say anything to that because it’s kind of true. She had been thinking about that, even though each instance of that thought sent sweeping guilt through her chest.

Chloe’s hand is soft and warm, unlike Beca’s cold, clammy hand. It feels nice. That’s kind of true, too.

“I’m glad you came,” Chloe repeats, more sincere than she had been at the door, not that Beca thought that was even possible. “I just...my dad’s been a lot recently. The lab is kind of struggling with funding so...yay,” she drawls. “And um,” Chloe’s eyebrows draw together. “Nothing, nevermind.”

Beca, knowing only vague things about Chloe’s father’s business, shrugs. “I’m sure it’s...it’s not as bad as you think and there isn’t anything to worry about.” She nudges Chloe. “And you’re set to take over eventually, aren’t you?”

Chloe’s expression shifts marginally before she composes herself and she shrugs. “I guess so, it’s just—” Chloe cuts herself off and sighs, shaking her head. “It’s nothing.”

Before Beca can inquire more into _that_ , soft footsteps sound behind her. “Oh,” a woman’s voice sounds from behind them. “I didn’t realize we had a guest.”

Chloe sighs and turns to face who Beca assumes to be her mother. “Mom, I told you I was inviting Beca over for dinner because dad wanted to meet her.”

Her mother smiles faintly. “That’s nice, dear. Nice to meet you, Becky.” She reaches for a wine glass from the cupboard. “I hope you like steak.”

“I do,” Beca says as pleasantly as she can, not bothering to correct her.

“Chloe, if you can, dear, please run and buy a couple bottles of red before dinner. We’re running low. You’ll indulge, won’t you, Becky?”

Before Beca can fully nod or respond, Chloe’s hand comes to grip her wrist again. Beca clamps her mouth shut and instead watches on silently as Chloe’s mother shuffles away again, humming to herself.

A million questions run through Beca’s mind. She had been under the assumption that Chloe’s mother was a researcher of some kind—another powerful figure in the medical field. It was essentially a well-known fact that Chloe had been born into all kinds of privilege, intelligence and money being only two of them.

It seemed that a stable family life was _not_ on the table.

“Are you okay?” Beca asks instead of the million other questions she wants to ask. It comes out softer than she intends. More delicate.

Chloe nods, but otherwise doesn’t respond before turning to face Beca again.

“It’s just hard being twenty-five and all of…” she gestures vaguely around the kitchen. “This.”

“Are we going to go to the store?” Beca asks hesitantly.

Chloe bites her lip. “You think I shouldn’t,” she assesses. Correctly, too.

“Chloe, it’s—” _none of my business_ “—up to you. I’ll just do whatever you want me to do.”

The more serious conversation that needs to be had likely doesn’t involve Beca at all, if Chloe’s mother has an alcoholism problem. She feels badly enough that Chloe has to go through this on top of likely being embarrassed that Beca saw anything at all.

“Is it weird that I kind of wish we were studying right now instead of this?” Chloe asks, sounding more cheerful than the expression on her face belies.

It isn’t weird at all, Beca thinks. “Show me your room,” Beca suggests instead of the thousands of more appropriate things she could possibly say at that moment.

It seems to do the trick however because Chloe smiles.

* * *

“How is tutoring going, Beca?”

Beca struggles to swallow the huge gulp of water she had just taken while maintaining eye contact with Chloe’s intimidating father. “It’s…” she clears her throat. “It’s going well.”

“And Chloe isn’t giving you any trouble?’

Beca glances at Chloe who has gone rather still. “No, she’s been a model student.”

To Beca’s surprise, he scoffs. Chloe continues to say nothing, but begins to push her food around her plate. “Can you believe that she’s been in school for seven years and she still doesn’t have a degree to show for it? And to think that she graduated high school early. All that potential...”

It’s the beginning of a rant if Beca’s ever heard one. Beca blinks back the sudden sharp sting she feels behind her eyes, the hurt she suddenly feels on Chloe’s behalf. “That really doesn’t mean anything,” she says before she can stop herself. She glances at Chloe’s mother who has not said a word. She merely swirls her wine glass and gazes despondently at her own plate.

Dr. Beale’s gaze cuts to her and she quickly looks back down, feeling chastised. “Your father is a professor, is he not?”

“Yes,” Beca says to her plate.

“He worked hard to get to where he is, didn’t he?”

“I’m sure he did, but—”

“And I guess he doesn’t want you wasting your time. He doesn’t want you wasting your life. You’re set to graduate aren’t you?”

“Uh, I—”

“Wish I could say the same for Chloe here,” he says lightly like he’s sharing a splendid joke. Beca clenches her fist in her lap.

Chloe sighs loudly.

“You know, Chloe,” Chloe’s father says, swirling his glass. Whiskey, probably, Beca notes. “If you tried a little more, maybe you wouldn’t be such a fucking disappointment.”

Beca startles at that, not expecting such harsh words in such a calm tone. She looks up hesitantly, eyes flicking back and forth between Chloe and her father. It almost feels like she had imagined the moment because Chloe continues to move food around on her plate and her father continues to hold his gaze intently on the side of his daughter’s head, arched eyebrow and a precariously-held glass of amber liquid to the side.

It’s surreal to say the least. Beca would have never imagined this moment happening.

“It’s literally just two classes, Chloe,” her father continues. “Two classes and you can stop sucking money out of us like a damn leech and actually do something worthwhile with your life. You already have a damn job ready for you, but you refuse to step up to just take it.”

It’s hard to imagine that these words are coming from the mouth of the man who had been such a generous giver to their school—the same that many students aspired to be. Atlanta, while not small or tucked away by any measure, was still no New York or Los Angeles. Yet thousands of students still flocked to their school and city for this very reason. This man, berating his daughter in full view of his daughter’s tutor.

Beca swallows.

Beca tries not to think about Chloe’s bright smile, helping children through dance steps at the studio.

She tries not to think about it because this isn’t any of her business. She tries not to think about it because she’s just a tutor.

A friend, maybe. A tutor, definitely.

“I’m sorry,” Chloe says quietly, a far cry from every version of Chloe Beale that Beca has been privy to thus far.

Chloe’s mother sniffs at her glass—white wine—and sighs before taking a long drink.

Beca isn’t supposed to be privy to _this_ at all, she’s sure of it. She isn’t supposed to feel so fiercely protective over a student she’s meant to take money from so she can finally get out of this town. So she can finally move to New York. So she can finally make music which people care about.

She isn’t meant to care about what Chloe thinks of her music—isn’t meant to feel guilty for taking money for a job she does well.

This is all temporary.

* * *

When Chloe texts her to meet her at the diner, Beca heaves a breath. She thought Chloe was hellbent on ignoring her after that episode at Chloe’s house—horribly awkward and horribly tense. Chloe hadn’t spoken to her the rest of the time in her bedroom while they worked through a calculus assignment...except when she had quietly asked Beca if she wanted to have sex.

Beca had politely declined, not really feeling like taking advantage of Chloe in her state, but Chloe’s lackluster response, her quiet acquiescence, had been enough for Beca to quickly pack her things up.

Before she left, she hovered awkwardly by Chloe’s shoulder and felt like she ought to kiss her on the head or hug her.

Instead of doing either of those things, she had squeezed Chloe’s shoulder and half-heartedly murmured a goodbye with the promise to text her to set up another session.

And it ended up being Chloe who texted first anyway.

Now, sitting in front of Chloe, Beca realizes that she had _missed_ her over the past few days. The past few days of not seeing Chloe’s infuriatingly innocent smile (a smile usually paired with something suggestive—suggestive enough to make Beca balk and completely fumble with her pen) had taken more of a toll on Beca than she expected.

It was because she was invested in Chloe as her student. Her tutor-subject-person. That was it.

“Hi,” Beca greets when Chloe takes out a novel and her notebook. “Are we...what are we doing today?”

“I thought we could just have breakfast for dinner,” Chloe says simply. “Then you can pretend like you enjoy tutoring me.”

It’s said so lightly and casually that Beca almost doesn’t catch it. “Hey,” she says finally. “That’s not true. I don’t _pretend_ like I enjoy doing anything.”

Chloe relaxes and giggles. “Sorry, I just…” she sighs and shrugs off her leather jacket. Beca tries not to look at her bare shoulders. “It’s been a lot. With...you know. Especially around this time of year.”

“We don’t have to talk about it,” Beca says.

And with that, they don’t speak, at least for a little while. Beca orders a burger and coke because it amuses her to see Chloe’s furrowed brow when she chastises Beca for not ordering breakfast as per ‘tradition’ at the diner. Chloe orders a stack of pancakes bigger than her head.

It is not until Chloe is halfway through the pancakes and Beca is halfway through looking at Chloe’s recent homework assignment that Chloe speaks again.

“I had an older brother,” Chloe says quietly.

It is absolutely not what Beca expected to hear. The word choice isn’t lost on Beca. She slowly puts down her pencil and watches Chloe from across the booth.

“Okay,” she murmurs, gently as to not scare Chloe off.

“I...his name was James, but I called him Jamie. I guess most people did, except dad. And mom when she was mad at him.” A thought seems to bring a smile to Chloe’s face. A fond memory, Beca hopes.

A part of her wants to reach out to hold Chloe’s hand, but the more rational part tells her that Chloe would more than likely shut down if she did that. She sits on her hands to resist the temptation.

“I...we were close,” Chloe continues before clearing her throat. “I don’t know, I guess he kind of accepted that he would always work for dad’s clinic. He was in his second year of med school when he…” Chloe hums, looking thoroughly embarrassed at her own tears and hastily averts eye contact with Beca. “It was an accident. I was almost done with my last year here. I’ve felt stuck this whole time.”

 _What did you want to do?_ Beca longs to ask, she doesn’t get the chance. The words die in her throat when Chloe looks back up at her.

“I don’t want to work for my father,” Chloe murmurs. “He’s not the best person but I know he’s still family. I just...I can’t do it. I can’t see myself giving up my life like that. But not doing what Jamie was working towards feels like cheating his memory a little. Even though I _know_ he wouldn’t have wanted that for me either.” Chloe laughs hollowly. “With how many extra years I’ve taken on here, I could have two degrees. But I just don’t…” Her voice cracks. “I don’t know how to leave.”

“I’m sorry,” Beca says when she realizes Chloe is spent. “I...don’t know what to say. I didn’t know about your brother. I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t really talk about it,” Chloe admits. “Aubrey knew because we were best friends when it happened, then she graduated and I guess I just...didn’t. It’s been a few years, but I still think about it. I guess I can’t forget about things as easily as my parents can.”

“I’m sure they didn’t forget about him,” Beca tries to say, but her voice feels weak and unused.

“Well, they’re doing a good job of making it seem that way.” She smiles wryly. “Didn’t see any family photos in my house, did you?”

Beca shakes her head, mouth too dry to speak. She wants to do nothing more than to slide into the seat next to Chloe and hold her—to at least sap some hurt away for the time being even if temporary solutions are barely sufficient for something like this.

Beca conceptually understands that people deal with grief differently, but the cold air in the Beale house had been unmistakable and immediately-apparent. She doesn’t say as much however because Chloe is right and nothing more needs to be said.

“Chloe,” Beca murmurs instead. She has no words, not really. It’s clear that Chloe is hurting—or had been at least. This impromptu study session in the dingy 24-hour diner just off-campus isn’t quite turning out how Beca initially expected.

Chloe shrugs. “I don’t...expect you to say anything. I know I’ve been kind of sucky the past few weeks and...I didn’t want you to think that it was…” Chloe licks her lips nervously, finally meeting Beca’s eyes. “Well...nothing that you did.”

Beca smiles at Chloe’s attempt to comfort _her_ when it definitely ought to be the other way around. _How are you real?_ She thinks to herself in wonder. “Want to know a secret?” Chloe nods, a curious look finding its way across her face. “I totally know you’ve been faking it, you know.” At Chloe’s incredibly confused expression, Beca fumbles with her napkin. “Not—not like _that_. I know you’re uh. Not. Faking that.”

“All those smarts and you can’t even say sex.”

“I meant,” Beca continues, pushing through the hot flush that burns across her cheeks. “That I know you’re faking this whole...not knowing calculus thing.”

Chloe smirks. “What gave it away?” she asks, the air between them losing some of the heavy feeling and tension.

Beca relaxes. Grades and homework, she knows more about. How to deal with Chloe flirting with her? Not so much. “Just...the blatantly wrong way you go about writing out some proofs. It really takes somebody who _knows_ what’s going on to get every step wrong. Or, you know, getting all the steps right but getting the final answer _wrong_.”

Chloe casually leans up to flick some hair out of her eyes, taking the opportunity to swipe at her own eyes as discreetly as possible. Beca pretends not to notice and looks intently into her glass of Coke as the moment passes.

“Okay, fine,” Chloe concedes. Beca glances up to see that Chloe looks entirely too pleased with herself. “But the sex is still good, right?”

* * *

_Yes, the sex is still good,_ Beca thinks. If thoughts could breathless, that’s exactly what’s happening in Beca’s mind as Chloe’s tongue does sinful things between her legs.

If somebody were to tell Beca when she entered college that she would thoroughly enjoy having a girl’s tongue between her legs, flicking incessantly at her aching clit, she would have run away screaming. Or at least blushed furiously to the point of passing out.

Now, she still feels on the verge of passing out, but for entirely different reasons. Better reasons. Now, she can’t imagine doing anything but tightening her grip in Chloe’s hair and keeping a steady enough hold so that Chloe _can’t_ stop.

Not that it seems like Chloe has any plans on stopping. Her hands grip Beca’s hips with near-bruising force as she presses Beca’s hips down into the mattress.

“So good,” Beca chokes out, trying to loosen some of the pressure in her chest. Another moan escapes her and as if the sound pleases Chloe, she hums, circling Beca’s clit once with a precise tongue before latching on with her lips and sucking.

Beca cries out, arching her back against the pressure and comes _hard_ against Chloe’s lips, tongue—her wonderful, wonderful mouth.

When she regains some semblance of sanity, she opens her eyes to Chloe smiling at her, glistening chin and all.

“You’re so good at that,” Beca murmurs lazily. “I want to be good at that for you,” she says before she can stop herself. Words keep slipping out of her mouth at an alarming frequency these days.

“Oh, don’t worry. I’ll teach you,” Chloe promises. “Later,” she murmurs, leaning down to capture Beca’s mouth in a lazy kiss. Her hand skates down the flat planes of Beca’s stomach, taking its time.

 _Later_ , Beca thinks when Chloe pushes two fingers into her. _Later sounds perfect_.

* * *

Somewhere down the line, Beca realizes the devastating truth that Chloe might actually be one of her closest friends. Jesse’s still there, sure, but everybody’s gearing up to leave. Beca wants to go to New York. Jesse wants to go to Los Angeles.

Everybody leaves eventually.

But somehow time feels like it doesn’t quite exist when she’s lying in her cramped bed with Chloe by her side, calculus all but forgotten.

“My mom died when I was a kid,” Beca murmurs, leaning up on her elbow so she can see the invisible figures she’s tracing on Chloe’s back.

Chloe’s eye cracks open, visible just barely beneath a mess of tangled, red curls. She sucks in a breath, but says nothing more, so Beca continues.

“I don’t really remember her. I mean, I guess I do. I have these memories of my favorite hugs. A soothing voice. But it never really feels tangible.”

Chloe rolls over slowly, breathing steadily as she continues listening intently. Beca feels nervous suddenly. “I’m not...I guess I was just thinking about what you told me about your brother. And I’m not trying to say I know exactly how you feel, but it’s just...I do get it.”

“You do get it,” Chloe whispers in agreement. Her eyes look softer than usual. “I...thank you for telling me. I’m sorry that you lost your mom.”

“I don’t think we ever really know how to deal with grief,” Beca explains quickly. _But it helps having other people to share it with._ “But I just thought I’d share that too. Not to, um, take away from your...pain, but just...”

As always, it seems like Chloe fares better with words than Beca does. “We don’t have to talk about her if you don’t want to,” Chloe says gently. “But I don’t mind hearing more about her.”

Beca sucks in a breath. Chloe looks incredibly _young_ then. Like all the world’s traumas have lifted from her shoulders in that moment—that moment of her extending her hand to Beca in a show of support. It makes Beca giddy with a kind of childlike delight, but also sweeping pain. As the two emotions war within her, she can do nothing more than to reach out and hold Chloe’s hand—figuratively, but she does reach out to brush an errant strand of hair from Chloe’s face.

“I know talking helps,” Chloe continues when she realizes Beca is yet to speak. “Not letting their memories fade away. I don’t...want that to happen to me. And I don’t want that to happen to you.”

 _I wish I knew you back then_ , Beca thinks forlornly. Three years ago. Two years ago. Any time but _now_ , when their time is so limited.

“Okay,” Beca agrees quietly, already slipping into a sleeping state.

 _You are so much more than you know_.

“You make me better,” Chloe murmurs. “I hope you know that.”

* * *

**Jesse  
** _Movie night w/ Amy? Benji had to bail_

 **Beca  
** _Ugh fine_

 **Jesse  
** _Bring your girlfriend_

 **Beca  
** _My what?????_

 **Jesse  
** _Chloe?_

 **Beca  
** _What the fuck, she’s not my gf_

 **Beca  
** _Shut up, i can hear your smirk_  
 _But shes really not, jesse i swear_

 **Beca  
** _ok i can literally hear you laughing across the library  
_ _idiot_

* * *

**Fat Amy  
** _Bumper told me tell you that jesse told him that you have a gf_  
 _and you’re not sharing her with the rest of us_

 **Fat Amy  
** _Is she that super hot chick you’ve been tutoring and totally-not-at-all sleeping with?_

 **Fat Amy  
** _Beca???_

* * *

Maybe they are kind of dating—kind of, sort of dating. Beca’s sure unlabeled things are all the rage these days.

(“All the rage?” Beca asks. “Who says that?”

Chloe scowls at her, somehow making the unpleasant expression more pleasant than it ought to be on anybody’s face. “Shut up, I’m studying.”)

But, the fact of the matter is: They’re _not_ dating. They’re not dating, which is why Beca agrees to go with Chloe to an end-of-semester party. Exams are almost entirely over and Beca’s confident Chloe passed this time around.

The shift between them and in Chloe’s general attitude are stark changes. Beca would have to be blind not to notice.

But the fact is, she isn’t blind. She can’t be, not when Chloe makes her want to pay more attention than ever.

Though sometimes she kind of loses track of Chloe - where Chloe loses herself in her own her head, or loses herself to the masses. It’s hard, crushing on Chloe Beale, only daughter of Doctor Richard Beale, an incredibly intelligent and powerful medical researcher with his own medical research corporation to boot.

It’s hard, knowing all of that weighs on Chloe’s shoulders and Chloe seems to want no part of it.

But tonight, Beca loses Chloe at a literal party, which would be funny if Beca’s own heart weren’t doing that super weird pounding thing.

She’s nervous.

Beca finds Chloe outside of all places. It is odd considering Chloe was the one who asked _her_ to attend the party and then she had essentially hidden herself away.

“I’ve been looking for you.”

Chloe, still leaning against the railing of the balcony, tilts her head back towards Beca. “I’ve been waiting for you to come find me.” She grins. “Gotcha.”

“Oh,” Beca drawls, feeling bold. It’s the alcohol coursing through her veins. It’s the brisk chill. It’s the high she gets from being near her _crush_. “So you planned this,” she continues, moving so she can stand just behind Chloe. She leans forward, letting her lips ghost the side of Chloe’s neck.

Chloe sighs, a happy little sound with only a tinge of melancholy. Beca draws back immediately, embarrassed.

“Sorry,” she murmurs. She drops to sit against the railing opposite Chloe. “I’ll just…”

“Don’t be.” Chloe twists to face her. “It’s really dumb, but I had a big crush on you for like...the entirety of my second senior year.”

Beca freezes. She gazes up at Chloe’s silhouette in the darkness. “You _what_?”

“I had a crush on you,” Chloe says simply.

“But why? And how?” _And you had a crush on me? Past tense?_

Chloe sighs. “I don’t know, I guess I had seen you around when you were a freshman, but I knew you better because we had the same Advanced Topics in Philosophy seminar that year. You did _not_ strike me as a philosophy major.”

“I’m not,” Beca replies distractedly. Her brow furrows as she combs through her memory for some kind of enlightening flash of red in her mind’s eye. A memory of sorts.

“I sat like right at the back,” Chloe clarifies.

Beca scoffs. “So did I. I would have remembered you.”

Chloe looks exceptionally pleased at that. “You would have?”

“Obviously, I mean…” Beca gestures at her. She feels nervous suddenly, like the ground is shifting beneath her feet. “Look at you,” she mumbles quickly. “You’re gorgeous. And like...super hot.”

Chloe’s smile dims a little. “Haven’t I heard that before,” she mutters, turning away from Beca.

Beca scrambles from her seat, moving to where Chloe is standing by the railing. She feels numb, suddenly, like she’s missing something crucial. It’s hard to think with the budding headache she feels, the rush from standing up too fast, and the incessant music from the party going on behind them.

She reaches out to touch Chloe’s elbow before she really knows what she’s going to say. Chloe turns her head slightly to face her.

“You’re so pretty,” Beca murmurs, keeping her eyes trained on Chloe’s expression. “But—but—” she quickly reaches up with a trembling hand to cup Chloe’s jaw, the tender movement stunning Chloe into silence as she opens her mouth to protest. “You’re so much more than that. You’re kind and you’re special and I _know_ you’re insanely smart even though you feel like you’re stuck in this…” Beca shrugs. “I would have remembered you.”

She isn’t sure how she gets through all that because her body feels kind of numb afterwards. She doesn’t have much of a chance to say anything more however because Chloe is turning and swiftly pulling her in for a soft, tender kiss. The way her lips brush against Beca’s so gently and slowly, despite the urgency Beca feels in the grip Chloe has on her waist.

“You drive me crazy,” Chloe murmurs, breath hot against her mouth. “You make me feel all these stupid things that I shouldn’t—not now when we’re—”

“Shh,” Beca shushes, pulling Chloe in again for another kiss. She is addicted to this woman, all professionalism be damned. “I just want to be with you.”

Beca has no idea where any of this is coming from, like all the unwritten lyrics she has to the songs that remind her of Chloe Beale. They well up inside her like the best and worst emotions, quickly spilling out into the world; quickly spilling into the minuscule spaces left between her and Chloe’s body.

Chloe whimpers into her mouth at that, immediately ramping up the intensity of her kisses. Tilting her head, her tongue glides delicately over Beca’s lower lip like a gentle request for entry. Beca can’t deny her, not once.

“I saw you once,” Beca murmurs, pushing back against Chloe’s chest slightly. Their breathing, labored, is loud and deafening against the ringing in Beca’s ears. “In my freshman year, at the activities fair.”

Chloe laughs, a sad, hollow laugh, and presses her forehead against Beca’s. “You should have said hello. I feel like you would have somehow made collegiate a cappella fun.”

“I was too intimidated. I’m _still_ intimidated.”

“Don’t be,” Chloe urges, voice low and hoarse. “I...want you so much that it scares me. And I feel like such an idiot for not telling you sooner. I’ve never felt like this about anybody before.”

Beca inhales sharply, struck by the sudden force of Chloe’s words and the emotion behind them.

“Somewhere along the line I—”

Beca knows what Chloe will say. It unlocks a world of possibilities, each more uncalculated than the last. The possibilities, with Chloe, seem endless, but they are unexplored and untested. Unproven.

“Don’t,” Beca chokes out, cutting Chloe off before she can finish. “I can’t, not now.”

Chloe pulls her close, into a hug that Beca immediately sinks into. She sighs, head tucked against the crook of Chloe’s neck, feeling all kinds of warmth for the first time since December started.

“We’ll figure this out in the morning,” Chloe promises, voice thick with emotion.

 _Right_ , Beca muses as Chloe’s lips meet hers again. _Because we have all the time in the world._

She really believes it.


	4. catch us in the mirror (it looks a lot like love)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New semester, new/old feelings. Same Beca and Chloe. Supposedly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from "Another Place" by Bastille ft. Alessia Cara. 
> 
> not the biggest fan of this chapter but im trying to finish this fic. <3 thanks for sticking around for my lil passion project. 
> 
> very slight reference to another fanfic i really love. so minute/small that you might blink and miss it but just thought it'd throw it out there in case somebody wants to point it out.

Figuring it out in the morning doesn’t quite come right away. Though they spend the night together, Beca regretfully has an early breakfast with her father and stepmother—a breakfast promised to them many weeks ago. It is a tradition at this point—an end-of-semester breakfast with her father as she begrudgingly admits that maybe four years at Barden wasn’t so bad.

“I have to get breakfast with my dad,” Beca murmurs, pushing at Chloe’s arm. She gives up on that when Chloe rolls further into her and captures her lips in a messy, early morning kiss. Beca almost caves completely, debating how upset her father would be if she skipped out.

“You should go,” Chloe whispers.

 _But we should talk_ , Beca thinks. “I should go,” Beca reiterates. “But—”

“Don’t let me keep you,” Chloe says slyly, leaning back with a grin. Beca groans at the blatant way Chloe tucks her arms behind her head and lets the sheets slip tantalizingly low.

“You’re horrible.”

“I’m not doing anything.”

Beca scowls. “Yes you are, you’re doing too much.” With that, she scrambles to climb back on top of Chloe’s body, letting her hands fly up to cup her breasts possessively.

Her previous mild hangover is already a distant memory.

* * *

So she’s a little late. Whatever. She’s done with her second last semester of college _ever_.

Her stepmother shoots her father a knowing look. Beca tries not to think about what _that_ means.

Chloe has already sent her a text.

**Chloe  
** _i’ll see you tonight_

“And tutoring?” Beca’s father is asking her. “That went well this semester?”

Beca shrugs, stifling a smile as she puts away her phone. “I can’t complain.”

What her father doesn’t know can’t hurt him.

* * *

“You look beautiful,” Chloe murmurs.

Beca blushes furiously under the intensity of Chloe’s gaze and the deep sincerity in her tone.

It wasn’t that Beca had never been on a date before—she had a small share of relationships over her past few years at Barden, but nothing had amounted to anything serious.

She mulls over how surreal her life seems now, especially as Chloe’s hand wraps around her own, soft and warm all at once.

“Where are we going?” Beca murmurs. She uses her free hand to draw the lapels of her jacket together as she shivers.

Chloe pauses immediately and slowly steps in front of Beca so she can gently pull up the zipper on Beca’s jacket. Beca shivers again, this time because of how close Chloe is standing to her; because of how softly Chloe rests her hands against her shoulders when she finishes zipping up her jacket. The act, in all its simplicity is incredibly intimate and so, so rife with gentleness.

It almost feels like Chloe is a completely different person, but the softness in Chloe’s expression is all too familiar. A gaze that Beca had grown accustomed to over the past semester, even amidst brief moments of tension and annoyance.

It is nothing new, simply just a fresh outlook for Beca.

“We’re going to get dinner,” Chloe says simply. “Then to celebrate you finishing _your_ last exam for the semester, I’m going to let you have your way with me.”

Beca swallows.

Right. Nothing new.

* * *

Beca grunts, keeping up the vigorous pace she’s set. Her fingers, slick and dripping with Chloe’s wetness, slide easily through Chloe’s cunt as Chloe’s cries intensify in volume.

She keeps her eyes trained on Chloe’s face, tracing over the furrow in her brow, her parted lips, and the deep flush on her cheeks—all serving to make Chloe even more attractive than she already is.

Chloe’s hands, clenched and unable to move by way of being restrained, tremble with the force of each precise, deep thrust of Beca’s fingers.

“Good?” Beca rasps, concerned when Chloe makes no noise for a few seconds.

Chloe hums, a thick rattling sound from deep within her chest, before nodding shortly. She stares up at Beca with bright eyes, brighter than usual. Her hips arch up wantonly when Beca’s fingers slow to a stop, buried deep inside Chloe. Beca tries to keep up some degree of focus, but the fucking clenching Chloe is doing is kind of fucking distracting.

“Chlo, words,” Beca urges. They’ve already been in bed for _hours_. Beca knows they should have stopped a while ago, but the thought of being apart for a couple weeks during Christmas break hda been too daunting.

“Yeah,” Chloe mumbles. “Yeah, just a bit more, baby.”

As always, the newfound nickname sends a thrill through Beca’s body. She shivers even if the heat in her room is cranked and the windows are sealed shut. Outside, cool air all around and the slightest hint of rain.

It is a typical Atlanta December just outside her window, but Beca finds it hard to care that another semester has just up and gone like that. Not when her entire world zeroes into the beautiful girl unraveling in her arms.

* * *

It is incredible how much better Chloe is at waking up in the morning.

But somehow, she makes waking up horrendously early a more enjoyable experience. Somehow.

Maybe it has something to do with the way she presses a slow lingering kiss to Beca’s shoulder, mapping the edges of her tattoo. Maybe it has something to do with the way she makes no move to leave the comfort of Beca’s bed and instead wraps her arms around Beca.

“I have a question,” Chloe asks. “Do you think I passed?”

It isn’t what Beca expects, but it makes her laugh. “Can we not talk about school right now?”

“What should we talk about?” Chloe wonders aloud. She sighs and nestles her chin just over the curve of Beca’s shoulder. Beca tilts her head back to watch Chloe carefully while her fingers gently trace over place where Chloe’s wrists had previously bore red lines from the scarves tying her wrists to the bed.

“I don’t know,” Beca finally says when Chloe continues to watch her.

“I have another question,” Chloe murmurs, gently easing Beca onto her back. Beca allows Chloe’s to drape her body over hers, like a second blanket because of how warm and comfortable Beca feels then.

“Should I be charging for tutoring services right now?” Beca snarks before she can help herself.

Chloe smiles, beautiful and carefree. “Depends. Will you be my girlfriend?”

It is entirely not what Beca expects at all. Her eyes widen and she takes in Chloe’s sincere expression, bright-eyed and open. It is such a far cry from just months ago, the end of August. Chloe’s dark-eyed gaze hellbent on simply making Beca come against the dresser multiple times. Possession and lust.

This is so much more. Just a matter of months and Beca finds that she has uncovered an entirely new version of Chloe Beale. One that she has grown to care for; one that she might even admit to loving.

It is so, so frightening knowing that there is a very tangible pressure hanging over both their heads. Beca, as Chloe’s tutor and essentially her ticket out of Barden. Chloe...as Beca’s one-way trip out of Barden as well. Out of Atlanta, for good.

“I think we can work something out,” Beca murmurs. “But I think I can’t accept money for that. Ethics.”

“Good, I wasn’t planning on paying you anyway. Not in money at least."

Beca shuts her up with an eager, messy kiss, already looking forward to the rest of the morning; looking forward to the rest of their mornings. 

Chloe drives her to her father’s house later that day with the promise to message Beca while she’s away. Beca hates herself for the immediate thought that follows, that a family vacation to Paris and Nice for Christmas never sounded so horrible.

It is the oddest feeling to Beca. As she watches Chloe drive away, her lips still tingling from the kiss Chloe planted on her just before giggling and hopping in the car, she wonders where this feeling came from.

It is the feeling that she would rather be in Atlanta than anywhere else in the world.

* * *

**Chloe <3  
** _i passed calc :)_

That is the message Beca wakes up to followed by a series of kissing emojis.

Beca calls Chloe immediately, cursing whatever Gods decided that Beca had to be across the globe in France of all places travelling with her father and stepmother on a fun family holiday. Emphasis on fun.

Chloe answers on the second ring. “Hey you. How’s Paris?”

“You did it! You passed!” Beca exclaims.

Chloe laughs. “Yes I did.”

“What’d you get?” Beca asks.

Chloe giggles. “I don’t want to tell you, you’ll let it go to your head.”

Beca exhales noisily. “ _Chloe._ Tell me,” she whines, uncaring that it is probably too early in the morning for that kind of nonsense. She can’t help but smile at Chloe’s dramatic exhale.

“Fine,” Chloe sighs.

Pause.

“Chloe!”

“Beca,” Chloe drawls, clearly enjoying herself. Then, finally, “I got an A minus.”

Beca gasps, shooting straight up in bed. “Holy shit, I knew you were faking it.”

Chloe laughs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, you just casually got an A minus. Alright.”

Chloe laughs again. She does not comment on Beca’s sarcastic tone. The brief silence that passes between them is comfortable. Beca lies back on her hotel bed, smiling up at the ceiling and wishing she could just be back in Atlanta so they could celebrate together.

Beca takes a stab at expressing her emotions. “I miss you.”

Chloe’s smile is nearly entirely audible through the phone: she sucks in a breath and pauses for a one delicate moment. “I miss you, too.”

* * *

Just like that, winter break is over.

Beca finds herself stunned at how little time she actually has until graduation. Residual Heat rings in the new year and new semester for her by requesting more samples of her work. That first week back at school ends up being one of the longest weeks of Beca’s life and she spends the majority of the week holed up in her room except when she dashes out for class. It sucks, but she hardly gets to see Chloe except for a very brief study session in which Chloe had diligently completed a preliminary statistics assignment without much guidance from Beca.

It is not until Saturday that Beca realizes that Chloe is lounging on her bed reading a thick novel that barely looks like it is in English.

“What day is it?” Beca asks in wonder. She glances to her side realizing that there is a bowl of yogurt and diced fruit as well as a steaming mug of tea.

Chloe giggles quietly, putting her book down while scooting over to the edge of Beca’s bed. “You’re surfaced, finally. Happy with what you’ve been working on?”

Beca nods. “Want to listen?” She is so grateful for Chloe’s presence. Neither obtrusive or invisible, Chloe had simply waited for Beca to finish.

“Yes,” Chloe says immediately, eyes lighting up. “You still owe me music.”

Beca laughs, amused at her girlfriend’s antics.

“Come here and let’s listen to it,” Chloe declares, patting the space next to her.

“Excuse me,” Beca says haughtily. “This is my room.” She clambers up next to Chloe nonetheless, pulling her laptop up with her. “Save comments ‘til the end.”

“Don’t you want live feedback?”

Beca would respond—she has a response ready—but Chloe’s hand comes up comfortingly to rub Beca’s neck, the gentle curve of the top of her spine, and up again to her hairline.

It is ridiculously _nice_.

“Stop,” Beca warns.

Of course, Chloe just doesn’t stop. She simply switches to an even slower, even rhythm. Her hand remains soft, yet firm against Beca’s skin.

“Well?” Chloe asks, her voice low and quiet. It makes Beca want to kiss her. “Show me.”

Beca finds that she really does not mind sharing—it is incredibly easy to open up to Chloe after all. It is something she has had the privilege to learn.

* * *

It isn’t that she has _stopped_ learning things about Chloe. She learns more about the freckles on her body, along her neck. The curve of her breast. She learns exactly what kinds of touches draw out the sharpest breaths or the gentlest moans.

Beca kind of never expected to be _that_ person, but she ends up skipping a class or two just to lie in bed with Chloe, watching the sunshine dance across their skin. Where one begins and the other ends is a mystery that Beca has no intention on solving.

She learns—and she aches to learn—more about each breathless gasp. Each telltale sign.

It feels like they have all the time in the world, or more specifically, that they have all the time in _their_ world between the stacks of assignments and between classes.

It is every college cliche rolled into one whirlwind romance and Beca has long given up trying to assess risks and calculate the trajectory of heartbreak.

And Chloe—Chloe continues to figure out how to unravel Beca more and more. Each touch of a hot mouth between her legs shatters Beca’s resolve. All kinds of words threaten to spill from her lips, each more dangerous than the last.

_Be mine—_

_I love you—_

_I love you—_

_Stay—_

_Please don’t leave me._

And with every sure stroke of Chloe’s tongue against her wet, aching clit, Beca finds herself losing all semblance of the carefully-constructed path she had set for herself. She just has no idea when it was that Chloe tore down her walls.

* * *

“Before break, you, um, mentioned that your mom…” Chloe trails off hesitantly. “We don’t have to talk about her,” she says hesitantly watching Beca slowly close her book. “But I just wanted you to know that we could. If you want to.”

Beca observes how Chloe bites her lower lip slowly. The way her hands are curled into loose fists. “You can ask,” Beca allows, fixing Chloe with a gentle gaze.

The thought of talking about her mother is daunting most of the time. At least ninety-seven percent of the time. But Beca finds that it is something she wants to share with Chloe, if only to comfort both of them in that moment.

“I don’t really know what to ask,” Chloe admits.

“That’s okay.”

“I...when did she—?”

“I was probably five or six,” Beca replies, wracking her mind for some kind of memory. They are foggy at best. “She was sick,” she says simply. “That’s, um, all that I really remember. I have pictures of me with her, but that feels like an entire lifetime ago. My dad said that she liked to sing to me. Maybe that’s where the music thing comes from. I think about it now, you know? What it’d be like if she were still around. All of this.” _You_ , Beca wants to say. She doesn’t manage to make it slip past the tip of the tongue.

Chloe nods with nothing but care in her expression. She reaches across the table to place her hands over Beca’s as the noise in the cafe fades to nothing but a dull nothingness. “I think she would be very proud of you.”

Beca marvels as that statement unlocks the floodgates of memories over the past few years at Barden. Yet another experience that she will not get to share with her mother, but the thought is comforting in how much Beca really believes Chloe when she says it.

“She would,” Beca agrees finally.

Chloe smiles at her and returns to her notebook.

“Why do you ask?”

“I’ve been…” Chloe licks her lips. “I’ve been coming to terms with what happened to Jamie and just how bad things have been at home. And I just...don’t know what I would have done without you last semester and this semester.” She smiles, a little shyly. “You’ve helped me more than you know, Beca.”

“I have?”

“Not just with the homework and the tutoring because I guess...I never really needed it. But what I needed was somebody like you to help pull me out from my own self-sabotage.”

“You did it all by yourself, Chloe. I’m just here to support you.”

Chloe’s lips twitch, this time neither sad nor happy. “You’re the first.”

Beca is quiet for a moment. “Jamie would be proud of you too, Chloe. No matter what you end up doing. He would be like...stupidly proud.”

“That sounds exactly like something he would say.” Chloe appears mildly amazed. “How do you always know what to say?”

Beca could say the same about Chloe.

* * *

“So New York, huh,” Beca’s father notes over dinner one cool evening. “That’s the plan.”

“Yes,” Beca says shortly because she doesn’t know what to expect.

He breaks into a smile. “I’m proud of you, Bec. You really stuck through it. And you’re almost done with tutoring forever. I assume it’s going well.”

That makes some of Beca’s previous elation dissipate quickly. “Yeah, it’s going well.”

It’s kind of hard to admit to her father that she’s kind of in love with the girl she’s tutoring. Not exactly dinner material.

* * *

**Chloe <3  
** _your original music is EVERYTHING  
_ _I love it so much <3  
_ _And your voice!!!_

**Beca  
** _Glad you liked it :)  
_ _I made it with you in mind_

God, Beca knows she’s a sap, but she can’t help it. She can’t imagine what the freshman version of herself would say about all of _this_.

**Chloe <3  
** _Come over?_   
_I miss you_

Beca supposes there isn’t much to say about _that_.

* * *

Somehow February flies by in a blink. Between tutoring and working part-time and the dawning realization that she really is going to move to New York at the end of the school semester, time is flying by far too quickly for Beca.

“Come with me to the studio today,” Chloe suggests. “I want to show you something.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a surprise, Beca,” Chloe explains, sounding very much like an exasperated adult lecturing a child. “Do you like surprises?”

“Not particularly, no.”

“I feel like you might like this one.”

“Will it involve sending your minion children to attack me?”

Chloe gasps. “ _No_ , but oh my _God_ , that’d be adorable.” She smirks. “I’ll have to keep that in mind.”

Beca grumbles to herself. “Fine,” she agrees. “But one whiff of sabotage and I’m out of there,” she promises with no real bite.

“Deal,” Chloe laughs and pulls her in for a kiss.

Beca ends up learning exactly what Chloe had been teaching her little rascals all semester.

“I used your original song,” Chloe says shyly when the first notes reach Beca’s ears. She loops her hand around the crook of Beca’s elbow, tenderly stroking her skin while being ever mindful of young eyes. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“You choreographed a dance to my song.” 

Chloe nods. “I mean. Multiple," she admits sheepishly. "We started with your Rihanna remix. They love your music.”

“They’re _ten_.”

“Not _that_ song. Your other remix. "We Found Love". I love that one," Chloe says in a dreamy tone. Beca knows exactly what Chloe is talking about. She had absolutely made it (as with most things recently) with Chloe in mind.

“Oh,” Beca murmurs, now entranced by the smiling, happy faces all around her. The dance is adorable and surprisingly complicated for a group of ten year olds.

It dawns on her fully that Chloe choreographed a dance to her music. Beca isn't necessarily one to really judge romantic gestures, but this makes something in her chest grow very tight. She can imagine the smile on Chloe's face as they had planned this little surprise over the previous few weeks. 

“This is what I want to do,” Chloe says suddenly and so quietly that Beca almost misses it.

“You want to do what?” she asks, leaning into Chloe’s side, eager to feel the warmth from Chloe's body.

Chloe’s arm comes up around her shoulder naturally. “Teach. Teach kids. Teach them how to be better like you taught me...well.” She trails off, shy for once. “Like how you taught me.”

“You want to be a teacher,” Beca clarifies.

“Yeah.”

“Chloe, I think that’s perfect.”

And it really is so amazingly perfect. Beca isn’t quite sure what to do with this new information. It hadn’t been something they had talked about, Chloe’s post-grad plans. Beca had (wrongfully, she notes) assumed that Chloe would just continue on to work for her father and then eventually work on something like a medical degree like her brother.

God, the thought of more years in school makes Beca want to die.

“You think I could be a good teacher?” Chloe asks, insecurity creeping into her tone. “I’m not...I’m not good at explaining things like you.”

“I’ve seen you with these kids,” Beca assures her. “You care so much about them and everything you teach them. And _please_ , as if I could ever choreograph something and then teach it to somebody. Everybody’s teaching style is a little different.”

Chloe flushes, pleased by the compliment. “I mean...I guess it’s something to consider, right?”

“Right,” Beca agrees.

“Also,” Chloe begins, nudging Beca. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten that you’ve kept this whole singing thing from me. Imagine my surprise hearing your voice on that remix.” Chloe lowers her voice. “Surprise might be a loose word for it…”

Beca flushes this time, bright red. She can feel it on her face. “There are literally children around, Chloe. Shut up.”

“You can make me later.”

* * *

As expected, the lines blur between what they consider dates and Beca still keeping up the pretense that Chloe needs tutoring. With calculus well out of the way, statistics is an easier course to handle.

“We should study,” Beca murmurs, though she makes no move to wriggle out from underneath Chloe. She likes Chloe’s solid weight on top of her. She likes the feeling of Chloe’s soft curves pressed against her.

She likes knowing that Chloe is _there_.

“We should,” Chloe agrees. “I _am_ paying you.” Her hand glides dangerously low down Beca’s belly before sweeping up again to gently grope at her breast, plucking at an already-stiff nipple.

Beca’s body is _too_ easy.

“I don’t know if this was included in the lesson plan,” Beca breathes, though her hips have already begun to rock upwards against Chloe’s body to alleviate some of the pressure between her legs.

“Should I pay you extra?” Chloe asks, voice muffled by Beca’s neck. She begins to hum and whisper-sing into Beca’s neck, the opening bars to Titanium.

 _What a lovely voice_ , Beca thinks. She wishes she could have heard it more.

* * *

April comes too soon. After an extremely short spring break—thankfully spent along the coastal shores of Savannah at a quiet Airbnb (clothes optional)—Beca finds herself getting ready for a gala honoring Chloe’s father.

Beca knows that Chloe hates having to go to these kinds of events, but when she is the only daughter of the man who has buildings named after him on campus, it sounds like the kind of thing she has no real way out of.

“I think I am way too underdressed,” Beca complains, tugging at the fabric of her dress. “You look like a million bucks. I look like ten dollars. Maybe fifteen.”

Chloe laughs from where she is adding finishing touches to her make-up. The expanse of her back that is visible to Beca from where she is seated on the edge of Chloe’s bed sends all kind of dark, dirty thoughts through her head at an alarming pace.

Beca sits on her hands.

“You look wonderful,” Chloe says without even glancing in her direction.

“You didn’t even look at me.”

Chloe sighs, like she thinks Beca is being exceptionally annoying and puts down her mascara. Beca isn’t quite prepared for the heated, direct look Chloe fixes on her when she turns around. “I’m looking now,” Chloe all but purrs, stalking towards Beca with all the grace of somebody who knows exactly what she wants. “And I like what I see.”

“Oh,” Beca squeaks out when Chloe pulls at her hands so that they’re standing face-to-face.

“Stop worrying,” Chloe whispers, breath hot against her mouth.

Beca wishes she could just shut off her brain like that. “I’m not worried,” Beca murmurs, eyes trained directly on Chloe’s glossed lips.

“You’re worried,” Chloe singsongs before walking back to her vanity to again fiddle with her make-up.

Beca follows slowly. “ _You’re_ worried,” Beca says knowingly. Chloe rolls her eyes.

“No,” she replies. “I’m just annoyed that I have to go to this dumb event. Just to watch my dad get yet another award that he doesn’t need. A glorified paper weight”

“You don’t have to go,” Beca suggests even though she knows it’s a weak suggestion.

“Oh, yes I do,” Chloe laughs.

“What’s the worst that could happen?”

Chloe shoots her a look. “Are you sure you want to come?” she asks for the fifth time since she herself invited Beca.

Sighing, Beca reaches out so she can gently trap Chloe against the vanity. “Do you _not_ want me to come?” she asks, trying to ignore the flash of pre-emptive hurt that rushes through her at the thought of Chloe not wanting her there.

“No,” Chloe says. Quick and urgent. Her eyes dart up to meet Beca’s in the mirror as she drops her make-up again. “No, I want you there,” she murmurs. “I just…don’t want you to be bored. It’s going to be boring and I don’t know how _not_ boring I can make it for you.”

It is a reflection of Chloe’s influence on her that Beca’s first thought is something incredibly inappropriate for a gala, black-tie event. She stifles the thought, filing it away for when they return to Chloe’s apartment later that night.

“We can be bored together,” Beca suggests. “I downloaded like two episodes of _The Office_ on my phone.”

Chloe relaxes, twisting in her arms. “Good episodes?”

“I guess we’ll see.”

“I like the idea of being bored together,” Chloe admits.

Beca nods, determined to brighten Chloe’s mood. “And there’s going to be free food.”

“I can’t promise it’s going to be good,” Chloe teases. “It’ll be that annoying fancy food that you hate. Just like in the movies.”

Beca reaches up to brush hair away from Chloe’s face. “Smoked salmon and cucumbers and crackers that I totally could have bought at the grocery store?”

“Yes.”

“I’m suffering through this for you so we’re definitely getting McDonald’s after.”

Chloe brightens, clearly charmed. She loops her arms over Beca’s shoulders, pulling her closer. Like each time Chloe pulls her into her orbit, Beca is breathless with how dizzying the force of her emotions are. “Carls?” Chloe asks eagerly.

“Pancakes it is.”

“Last chance,” Chloe warns. “You sure you don’t want to spend your Friday night with your friends?”

“Chloe,” Beca whines. “I want to be with you.” The words tumble from her before she has a chance to take them back or modify them to correct the course how deeply she actually feels for the woman in front of her. “I don’t want you to go alone. It’s final.”

“Beca,” Chloe murmurs. The heat in Chloe’s gaze makes Beca want to retract all her previous statements so they can spend the entire evening in bed. Beca’s sure she can convince Chloe.

Beca tries to smile innocently. “Is it working?”

Chloe sighs. “Is _what_ working?” she asks with exasperation in her tone, but she is already stifling a smile.

“Making you feel better, weirdo.”

“I like the idea of coming home with you. That's making me feel better.”

Beca blows out a frustrated breath. She hates that Chloe can say impossibly sweet things but somehow make it completely dirty all at once. “Can I kiss you or will it mess up our lipstick?”

Chloe sighs exaggeratedly and finally sags fully into Beca’s arms. “I can fix it after,” she whispers before she is moving forward so that their lips can press together.

The event itself is nothing more than an opportunity for high-powered figures in academic and professional circles to schmooze with each other over expensive, endless alcohol and as Beca and Chloe had predicted, a surprising assortment of unnecessary finger foods.

“We should probably sit,” Chloe murmurs.

Beca startles, lowering her champagne flute from her mouth. She hadn’t thought about it before this very moment and it occurs to her that they’re probably going to be in plain view of Chloe’s parents. At the very least, Chloe’s father. Beca had tried to forget about that first dinner at Chloe’s parents’ house, but it was kind of difficult to shake Dr. Beale’s general intimidating force.

“We’re not sitting with your parents are we?” Beca asks in a panicked tone. She’s sure she has lipstick on her teeth.

“No, they get to sit with the other adults. I just get to be thrown into a photo later on.” Chloe smiles. “Why? Scared?”

“I mean, a little. Considering…” _Considering we’re dating and now he knows I spent more time imagining you naked than tutoring you_.

“Considering we have sex regularly,” Chloe finishes sagely. “Totally understandable.”

“No! Just...since I’m still tutoring you.” Beca hasn't necessarily considered their relationship like _that_ in a long while. It is still jarring to think that other people perceive her and Chloe's relationship as being an entirely professional and educational one.

Chloe flutters her eyelashes. “You are?”

Beca swallows and quickly passes off her glass to a passing server. “ _Stop_.” She glances around. “He could be anywhere.”

Chloe laughs and pulls Beca to sit down at their designated table. “You’re overreacting. He’ll probably be happy to see you. He thinks you’re a good influence.”

That eases some of Beca’s nerves for whatever reason. She supposes it might be something to do with the fact that her girlfriend’s father approves of her in some capacity (though not necessarily the _right_ capacity). Beca allows Chloe to steer her into a seat.

Chloe politely greets the people seated at their table and makes small talk with some professors that Beca has no idea what department they’re even from.

It is a completely different world.

Beneath the table, Chloe’s hand moves to grip hers.

Beca never wants to let go.


	5. you're holding someone close (i got a feeling that it's time to let go)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All endings have a beginning. Sometimes it's just hard to figure out when it all starts and ends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for how long it took to get this out. Apologies again for the general crappiness of this chapter. I had huge chunks of this written for months, including the ending. Just needed to find some inspiration again.
> 
> Chapter title from "Happy" by Oh Wonder and "Circles" by Post Malone. You can find the EP/short playlist I put together for this fic **[here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5jP3zLWdFLCltl2bsehWXO?si=yToNz02sSK-YsnHkRddP4g)**. I would describe the mood of the playlist as "fun pain".
> 
> This is the [gifset](https://darby-carter.tumblr.com/post/190811702144/chloe-beale-rebel-without-a-cause-is-struggling) this fic was based on. Thank you for joining me on this journey.
> 
> Unbeta'd, sorry.

Barden has one rule: when the weather is nice, throw a party. Beca can count on Jesse for that this time as she finds herself in the Treblemakers’ shockingly nice house for an “almost-end-of-year” party.

 _Any excuse to throw a party_ , Jesse had said.

 _Any excuse to make out with Chloe on his couch_ , Beca had responded.

It’s kind of _fun,_ Beca supposes. If one were _into_ that. And maybe Beca is kind of into that. After all, a party had brought her Chloe in the end.

Now, Beca feels drunk.

Beca _is_ drunk.

It feels like important information to share with Chloe, against whom she is leaning comfortably on the couch. Around them, the party goes on, but Beca finds herself closing her eyes for a moment, taking in the scent of Chloe’s perfume and the feeling of Chloe’s shoulder against her cheek.

They could honestly be doing more interesting things, Beca muses. Like each other. She resists smiling at her own joke. But as her brain fully catches up with her libido, she wonders exactly why they _aren’t_ just leaving the party early as they typically do and going back to either her own or Chloe’s apartment. The thought consumes and she frowns, barely having time to process exactly when or why she became that person—the kind of person so enamoured with a significant other.

(She doesn’t hate it, in all honesty. She likes it. Loves it, even.)

Beca places her hand on Chloe’s thigh and squeezes, bringing her girlfriend’s attention towards her. She attempts a smirk, but only manages a second squeeze and some kind of spasm across her face in an attempt to blatantly seduce Chloe.

“Chloe,” she murmurs. “Let’s get out of here.”

Chloe actually _does_ manage to smirk at her and gently lifts Beca’s hand from her thigh. Beca whines in protest, but the pout disappears quickly enough when Chloe lifts their joined hands to kiss the back of Beca’s hand soundly. “Let’s go get some air,” Chloe responds. Beca thinks she says something else, perhaps an apology of sorts to the person she was sitting next to. In no time, Chloe’s hand wraps around her side and she is leading them both towards the backyard, weaving through the various faceless bodies.

More faceless bodies. More people that Beca never has to interact with again. The thought kind of makes her sad, but she can’t pinpoint the exact emotion or the exact reasons. Not quite yet.

“Chloe, I’m drunk,” she mumbles, when Chloe pulls her off to the side. A small, quiet corner of the backyard where they’re moderately away from nosy ears and prying eyes. “Parties suck,” she complains.

“Thought you liked them,” Chloe says, reaching out to tuck a strand of hair behind Beca’s ear.

“Mm…I like you,” Beca responds, smiling as innocently as she can. She curls her fingers around the front of Chloe’s jeans, right through the belt loops. “I like you _at_ parties.” She lowers her voice, though not by much. “Remember the _first time?_ ”

Chloe steadies Beca with one arm wrapped around her shoulders. “How could I forget?”

Beca sighs, pulling Chloe in all the way so their lips meet in a surprisingly gentle, deep kiss. Beca had intended for it to completely float out of her control and spiral quickly into passion, but her body thrums happily at the sensation of Chloe holding her so closely and so tenderly.

Chloe has a point, Beca muses as she tilts her head to better press her lips against Chloe’s. That first night _was_ pretty unforgettable. This entire _year_ has been pretty unforgettable.

It’s what makes it so hard for Beca to really believe that she’s finally succumbing to the cliché that she’s really going to _miss_ it all when it’s all said and done. School. Life.

Chloe.

She breathes out hard through her nose and quickly pulls back from the kiss, ignoring the way her heart pounds at the sight of Chloe’s visible confusion; of Chloe’s kiss-swollen lips; of the way Chloe’s leather jacket wraps around her shoulders perfectly.

Beca kisses her again. She’s sure she feels Chloe’s smile against her lips. It makes her feel warm—incredibly so. And it has nothing to do with the mild warmth of an April evening in Atlanta.

“Take me home,” Beca murmurs against Chloe’s mouth.

* * * * *

Home, this time at least, is Beca’s apartment because it is closer.

But at the same time—other times—home is also trading slow, lazy kisses with her girlfriend as they leave a messy trail of clothes to the bathroom. It is the warmth of the steam rising around them in the shower as Chloe’s hands weave their way through Beca’s hair with familiarity and patience. Home is the press of Chloe’s breasts against her back as she holds Beca in the shower, caring for her and telling her how silly she is for whatever stupid thing Beca had said or done that day, that week, that _hour_.

Chloe doesn’t mean it—she doesn’t have a mean bone in her body. It’s not about that, however. Home is the steadiness and affection in Chloe’s voice; home is the realization that Beca and _only_ Beca gets to see this because she’s the one who Chloe chose.

She’s the one who Chloe had fallen for.

Home is Chloe pulling an oversized shirt over her head and dodging her kiss with a laugh because Beca’s _drunk_ and they can fool around in the morning.

Home is knowing that there will be mornings to come with Chloe and Beca doesn’t want to miss another moment of it.

So she keeps her eyes open for as long as she can, trained on the side of Chloe’s face.

Home is the comfort of Chloe’s shirt curled within Beca’s fist because she has found something that she wants to hold on to for the rest of the night.

* * * * *

Home feels a lot like love.

And, speaking of—

Beca wonders if they’re both just so starved for it and if that’s the case, she wonders, additionally, why she’s so afraid to be on the receiving end of Chloe’s love. Why home remains daunting and inaccessible and _distant_ when everything she wants is right there.

It nags at Beca that they haven’t really _talked_ about it. Even after the night at the gala, Beca finds that time does not seem to want to slow for them. Even after the party, time does not slow.

(Why would it? Why would time slow just when Beca’s finally found something that she kind of wants to cherish? That would be too convenient.)

Suddenly, it is May and Beca is absentmindedly using the tip of her finger to trace nonsensical shapes over Chloe’s collarbones as they lie together in Chloe’s bed, having spent most of the day having sex on various surfaces in Chloe’s apartment. Beca watches the progress of her finger across Chloe’s skin. Back and forth, back and forth.

It’s on the tip of her tongue.

Chloe beats her to it, somewhat.

“I know about New York,” Chloe murmurs. She says it in a way that sounds so slow and sleepy that Beca thinks she has imagined it at first; that it is a product of the two things that have been on Beca’s mind for the past little while—New York and Chloe. And how the two seem at odds with each other, but for reasons that Beca doesn’t quite know how to articulate.

She has a nagging feeling she’s about to find out.

“What?” Beca asks, just to be sure however. Just to clarify.

“New York. Your job offer.”

“How?”

Chloe sighs and pushes herself so she is sitting up with her back against the headboard. Beca hesitantly follows, still moving herself so she is tucked against Chloe’s side, though with a small degree of weariness.

“A couple weeks ago, I guess? I asked to use your laptop to print something and your email was just...open to your exchange with the—”

“—the label,” Beca finishes, a little impatiently. It’s not either of their faults, really. Beca has been fretting over this major life decision for the past little while. If it weren’t the literal job offer or an email about the job, it would have probably been her searches for apartment listings. Or correspondence with her dad about leaving. “Right. That.”

It could have been any number of things. Maybe Beca subconsciously wanted Chloe to know about it—wanted her to find out some way or another before it was too late.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Chloe asks quietly. She doesn’t sound particularly hurt...perhaps just a little resigned.

Beca swallows. “I...I don’t know. It was just easier. And you’ve had so much going on with school and work and—and graduating—”

“So have you,” Chloe interrupts gently.

“I just didn’t think it was important,” Beca says quickly, though she cringes immediately after the word choice leaves her mouth.

Chloe hums. “Seems kind of important to me that you’re moving across the country, but okay.”

Beca latches onto the hint of annoyance in Chloe’s tone and her earlier hum. “Well, what about you? You haven’t told me what you’re doing after graduation either.”

“Staying here,” Chloe shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean _staying here_?” Beca asks. “At Barden?” she asks incredulously. “After—”

“God, fuck—” Chloe laughs exasperatedly, moving her arm from where it is comfortably pressed against Beca so she can weave her hand through her hair. “No, just. With my dad and my mom. And working for my d—”

Beca finally pushes herself away from Chloe, sitting up. “You’re joking,” she says sharply, looking Chloe directly in the eyes.

Chloe’s brow furrow and hurt flashes across her eyes. “Why would I be joking?”

“We just—you said you wanted to _teach_ ,” Beca implores. “You said that to me. In February. In March. Whatever.” She swallows back some of the frustration she is currently feeling, though the more rational part of her knows that it’s the stress talking more than actual frustration she feels with Chloe. “That wasn’t even that long ago. And I know that you don’t want to stay here to do it. To teach, I mean.”

She doesn’t mean for all of that to come out, not in the way that it does anyway. Beca wonders how this happened—how everything became so miscalculated.

She tries not to think about the words that she so badly wants to say; the words she should have said, maybe, long ago. _Come with me_.

As if reading her mind and sensing Beca’s distinct lack of action, Chloe’s gaze darts away. “Well. Things change.”

Despite everything, Beca feels an impending headache. “What the fuck does that mean?” She doesn’t mean to curse, but it slips out, more hostile than she intends. “I—I’m sorry, I just—you said you…” she trails off when Chloe still refuses to meet her eyes. “Are you just mad that I didn’t tell you about New York? I was going to,” she tries lamely, reaching out to place her hands on Chloe’s knees in an attempt to comfort her. It’s a weak attempt—both her words and her touch—and they both know it.

“I’m not just mad about anything,” Chloe says. “I’m not mad,” she repeats, as if to convince herself mostly, but Beca takes a small amount of comfort in how Chloe sounds marginally more sincere. “I’m just…” she trails off, eyes flicking up to Beca’s almost helplessly. It is telling enough that Chloe finds herself at a loss for words. Beca feels rather underqualified to help her girlfriend there.

What Beca _really_ wants to do—what she wants to _say_ is some form of expression of how much she cares for Chloe. How deep her feelings really go. Even as she sits here, on Chloe’s bed at the end of her senior year at Barden, _finally_ , Beca still cannot believe that she gets to call Chloe hers. Even just for a moment. Even just for these last few precious moments.

It’s _there_ , on the tip of her tongue. “I—” Beca clamps her mouth shut because her heart is doing that stupid pounding thing like it always does when she really sits down to assess her feelings for Chloe.

“What?” Chloe asks, frowning when Beca refuses to say anything more. When she _can’t_ say anything more.

 _You know_ , Beca wants to say. Because of course Chloe _knows_. Chloe is so much smarter than people give her credit for. Chloe is so much kinder, so much more generous—and so, so much more than what she presents to other people. _Help me say it_.

The silence stretches between them.

Chloe sighs and draws her comforter up to her shoulder, seemingly curling in on herself further. In that gesture alone, Beca feels a gnawing distance grow between them. Simultaneously, Beca sees a scared young woman, still so strapped beneath her father’s expectations.

And again, Beca is once again reminded that maybe they both aren’t so different from each other.

They never really were. Maybe it’s what makes this all so difficult as reality crashes into Beca.

“I should go,” Beca finally says, even though it’s the last thing she wants to do.

Chloe doesn’t stop her.

* * * * *

Right, this is Beca’s least favourite part of relationships. The fighting. The stress. The nausea and the headaches. Regardless of the name, it is heartbreak and strain that leads to the unthinkable and the unfixable, this much Beca knows.

She had seen it in her own parents after all.

Beca bikes past the Beale mansion a few times. Not on purpose, obviously. Of course not. She does slow her pedaling as she goes, eyes drifting to the front door and the secrets it hides. The stolen futures. The pain and the regret. A part of her wonders if Chloe is in there now, having a meal with her parents, staring silently at her plate for the most part.

It feels like forever ago that Beca had been in that house as well, primarily as Chloe’s tutor.

* * * * *

The weirdest part is, it wasn’t even a _fight_.

It was barely even a disagreement. It felt more, at least to Beca, like it was a sharp realization that maybe they were on distinctly different paths. And as school finally winds down to a close and all they have are final exams on the horizon, Beca finds herself wringing her hands figuratively and literally.

Right now, she’s doing it literally, standing in front of the community center, waiting for Chloe.

Chloe, who finally emerges with her duffle bag over her shoulder, is surprised to see her. “Hey,” she says quietly. “You’re here.”

She doesn’t sound particularly surprised, but she doesn’t sound particularly comforted.

Beca wheels her bicycle back and forth. “Give you a ride home? I’ll make this one free of charge.”

Chloe smiles and like sun breaking through the clouds after a storm, Beca feels like things really might be okay.

* * * * *

Chloe’s tongue flicks out against her neck, lapping at the tiniest beads of sweat forming across Beca’s skin. Slowly, she parts her lips, alternating between hot, wet kisses and slow sucks against the column of Beca’s throat. Her hand, moving steadily between Beca’s legs alternates its movements as well. A slow circle around her clit, but not quite right against it, where Beca throbs for her. A pass of Chloe’s fingers, poised and ready to press inside Beca, against Beca’s center, where Beca aches for her.

Beca clutches at Chloe’s shoulders, her back, her hair—anything to convey to Chloe that she’s done with the teasing and the foreplay. Chloe _must_ know, as intuitive as she is, but she chooses not to do anything about it. Typical, Beca thinks.

“You are so impatient,” Chloe mumbles, lifting her head from Beca’s neck when she feels Beca’s hips rock upwards in a bid to get Chloe to move things forward. “I like taking my time with you.”

Beca groans, but allows Chloe to tilt her head back for a searing kiss. Together, their lips move in a well-practiced dance. Chloe’s tongue slips expertly into Beca’s mouth, both of them evidently as desperate as the other as their kisses quickly devolve into something needy and breathtaking. Beca moans quietly, the sound barely escaping into Chloe’s mouth as Chloe shifts above her and rocks her cunt down against Beca’s thigh. Beca loves it when Chloe uses her like—when Chloe needs her like this, to the point that she can’t help herself.

“Yes,” Beca whispers, scraping her hand up Chloe’s back, then back down again to grip her ass possessively. “Please, Chlo.”

Chloe grunts, rocking her hips down again, sending another streak of wetness across Beca’s thigh, then another when Beca feels her own cunt clench around nothing in response.

As if sensing the desperate whine that is about to escape Beca’s throat, Chloe deftly rolls them over so Beca is sitting astride Chloe’s thigh, hands flying out to the bedspread to maintain her balance. “Fuck yourself,” Chloe whispers. She slides a hand between Beca’s legs, waiting patiently for Beca to shift to accommodate her. Slowly, she pushes two fingers through Beca’s folds, curling them as they finally slide inside Beca with ease. Both of them groan at the sensation.

“Fuck yourself,” Chloe repeats. “Please, I love seeing you like that.”

“Okay,” Beca breathes out. “Fuck, yes, okay.” She rocks her hips as best as she can, careful not to put too much weight on Chloe’s stomach where she rests her hands to steady herself now. “Fuck,” she whimpers when Chloe’s fingers twitch and move inside her. She shuts her eyes, tugging her lower lip between her teeth to stop the absolutely uncool additional whimper that threatens to escape her.

“I love seeing you fuck yourself,” Chloe whispers again, reaching up to palm Beca’s breast. Nimble fingers pluck at Beca’s nipples, alternating as she goes.

Beca imagines Chloe saying a different kind of ‘love’ statement—imagines it as she comes, Chloe’s name spilling from her lips like benediction and sin.

* * * * *

“It’s been a while since you’ve tutored me,” Chloe comments. “Can’t say that I can complain about this, though.” She squeezes Beca’s shoulder, pressing her closer.

“I was thinking about that too. You don’t need it, not really. You didn’t need me at all.”

“Of course I did. And now I’m going to graduate.” Chloe presses a kiss to the side of her head. “Thanks to you, my little nerdy girlfriend.”

It reminds Beca of the uncertainty from only days before. She feels the strain of that discussion and the increasing pressure from their impending future—looking very much like separate futures as time goes on—weigh upon her shoulders once more.

“And you’re going to take your degree and go and work for your dad.”

Chloe sighs. “Beca, can we not do this right now?”

“Does it matter to you?” Beca asks before she can help herself. “Does any of this matter to you?”

“Of course it does!” Chloe exclaims, sitting up. “Beca, come on,” she tries, pulling at Beca’s wrist as she haphazardly pulls on her discarded underwear. “Beca,” Chloe intones, raising an eyebrow and tugging a bit more firmly.

Beca huffs, allowing herself to be pulled back towards the bed, but the fight is still in her.

“You’re just scared,” Beca murmurs. She is no longer sure if she’s talking to herself or talking to Chloe. Or if there’s really a difference to care about at this point. “You’re just letting him control your life again—letting him walk all over you.”

Chloe shrugs helplessly and continues flipping through her novel, though Beca notices her eyes are barely scanning the pages. It’s the general air of aloofness that gets to Beca first. She reaches out and pulls the book from Chloe’s hands with her own shaking hands.

“Come to New York with me.”

Chloe’s eyes lift to hers, surprised. “What?”

“Come to New York with me,” Beca repeats, more firmly. “You’re graduating, you’re getting out of here.”

“I have to—”

“You don’t have to do anything,” Beca pleads. It’s a dumb thing to plead, when her next words are “But please come to New York with me. We can get a stupidly small apartment and fight over whose turn it is to yell at the landlord to fix our dumb little A/C machine. And, and—” she doesn’t realize that her breathing is reaching alarming levels of “panicked” until Chloe pulls at her hands so she sits heavily on the edge of her bed. “Chloe,” she whispers.

“I know.”

“You can just graduate. You’re an adult. Who cares what your father wants you to do? Just take that degree and a half and get out of here. Get out of here with _me_.”

 _Choose me_.

“My family needs me, Beca,” Chloe explains patiently. “I know you’re intent on getting out of here—out of Atlanta—but my family _needs_ me.”

It makes Beca inexplicably angry as she feels herself losing control of her emotions for the first time in a long time. The hurt bubbles out of her irrationally, like a once-dormant volcano. “I need you,” she declares, shoving Chloe’s hands off her lap. “I need you to come with me.”

 _Choose me_.

“I know,” Chloe says.

“I need you,” Beca whispers, leaning towards her lover involuntarily. She wants that closeness so badly. She needs to feel Chloe’s touch. She’s not sure why it stings, hearing the simple acknowledgement from Chloe.

 _Well, why didn’t you say anything?_ _You need me too_ , is what she so desperately wants to say.

“I know,” Chloe repeats anyway, like she can hear Beca anyway. “I know, Beca.” Her breath is warm against Beca’s lips.

“I need you,” Beca repeats, tugging at Chloe’s hands. A direct contrast to when she had pushed Chloe away just a minute before.

“Do you think I don’t need you too?”

“You needed me as a tutor,” Beca spits out before she can stop herself.

“No!” Chloe sighs, raising her hands to rub her eyes. “At first, yes. But I need you so much more than just that. This is so hard for me, Beca, but I’m not doing this to...to hurt you or anything.”

Beca tries to quiet her emotions. Tries to quiet her internal turmoil. It is difficult, but she forces herself to metaphorically sit her on her hands as she waits for Chloe to finish talking.

“You know...this thing with my dad isn’t something he’s forcing me to do. Not really. I mean...I guess a part of it might seem like it is, but it’s something that I’ve had to live with my whole life and then even more after my…” Chloe pauses, taking a moment to gather herself. “After my brother died.”

“Chloe...I’m so sorry, I—”

“It sucked so much when I realized it, you know?”

“Realized what?”

“I realized it wasn’t me that he loved, it was what I could do. Or maybe what I represented.”

“That’s not true,” Beca protests automatically. Despite the instinct to protect Chloe, she knows that there must be some objective truth to her assertion. There could be no way that Chloe’s own parents thought so little of her or her contributions to their lives. That was kind of what family _did_ , as far as Beca was concerned. “I’m sure it’s not true,” she amends.

“It is. And I can’t make you wait for me when it’s something that I have to do for _me_.”

“You don’t—you don’t want me to wait for you,” Beca clarifies, feeling her heart pound incessantly in her chest. She kind of hates it at the moment—hates her heart for all that it makes her feel.

“That’s not all I’m saying, Beca. I’m doing this for me. I just...with my brother and my parents and everything that’s happened...I need to make things right.”

Beca thinks she might cry, knowing that Chloe continues to harbour all these feelings and experiences close to her chest. It must be an incredibly heavy burden, bearing that weight and feeling so seemingly alone. “You didn’t...you never did anything wrong, Chloe. I hope you know that.”

Chloe smiles. A little heartbroken smile. “Maybe. But this is something I need to do. Just like going out there and changing the world with your incredible, beautiful music is something you need to do.”

Chloe has always made Beca feel special and wanted and so so important. She hopes Chloe knows that—hopes that Chloe will always know that Beca has valued their time together. Not for the first time, Beca laments the timing of it all. She wonders, as she often does, what would have happened if she had spent some time taking in Barden as opposed to attempting to speed through it. In Chloe's long stroll through her years at university, she still somehow managed to cross paths with Beca who had been hellbent on getting the fuck out of there.

It feels like regret. Just a little (a lot).

“So...what now?”

* * * * *

Eventually it comes to be that they agree to have a pre-break-up. It is something that Beca _hates_ but she understands why they agree to it. She and Chloe agree to eventually taper off their bedroom activities, whittling down into nothing by the time graduation rolls around.

Just friends. Beca can do that. Chloe can do that. Beca thinks that she’s handling this remarkably well.

Not.

She stares at the side of Chloe’s head as they sit together on the quad in the early evening. It is very much _summer_ and Chloe is very much still the prettiest woman Beca has ever laid eyes on.

Barden and its stupid pretty campus and stupid pretty sunsets from every angle. Barden and its stupid need to make Beca feel like every opportunity is the perfect opportunity to kiss Chloe before she realizes that she _shouldn’t_ and she really _can’t_.

They agreed to be adults over this.

“What are you thinking about? I can practically hear your teeth grinding?”

Beca quickly unclenches her jaw. “I don’t know if I’ll ever understand entirely,” Beca admits, even though it sucks that she really kind of _does_. “But it sucks thinking about being without you even for this bit of time we’ll have together.”

They haven’t really _talked_ about the post-break-up. The break-up. It feels unsettling and freeing all at once to have such an amicable break-up, albeit a break-up that is lasting kind of a long time. “I know,” Chloe says after a moment. She says nothing more, but a quick peek at Chloe's expression tells Beca that she is not particularly upset. A little melancholy perhaps. It lets Beca breathe a little, even if her heart clenches at the sight of Chloe as it usually does.

“I mean. I literally brought you here...so.”

“Oh my God, stop.”

Beca takes a moment to laugh freely, taking in the sight of the colours spreading across the sky as the sun sets over their campus. She fingers the USB in her pocket and wonders whether she should give it to Chloe now or wait until the very end. She settles, eventually as the minutes trickle by, on somewhere in between.

“Chloe,” Beca murmurs, drawing Chloe’s attention away from the book in her lap. “I have something for you. But I...um. Want you to only listen to it after we graduate, okay?”

Chloe frowns. “But that’s not for another little while.” Her eyes brighten. “Is it music? Did you make more music for me?”

“Yes, but you have to _wait_.” Beca’s heart races. _Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all._

“I _hate_ waiting,” Chloe complains. Still, she holds a hand out eagerly, knowing Beca and her penchant for USBs and CDs.

“Promise, Chlo.”

“Ugh. Fine. Yes. I’ll listen to it after graduation. Then you can hear me yell at you over voicemail because I know you’re going to be flying anyway.”

Beca tries not to think too much about the very minute crack in Chloe’s voice as she said that. She quickly presses the USB into Chloe’s waiting hand and turns back to staring out into the distance, faint blush on her cheeks.

“If I forget to listen to it, that’s on you.”

“Chloe!”

As Chloe laughs to herself, Beca can do nothing but stare.

Beca hopes it’s enough.

* * * * *

Beca graduated. Chloe graduated.

Beca’s offer email sits like an ominous reminder of where she has to be in just a few short days.

When had months whittled down to days?

Chloe’s father is sending her to Savannah after graduation to help get a new research laboratory up and running while Chloe takes a year off to study for the MCAT and work.

It is clear that there is little else to do except move on.

Time to leave college behind. Time to leave it all behind.

As Chloe’s father had put it, Chloe was going places where Beca never had any intention of going. As Beca’s father had put it, she had an opportunity to pursue her dreams. Why throw it all away?

It had been the perfect bubble—their time together. But how short it had been, so limited by the circumstances of their own design.

Not for the first time, Beca wonders what would have happened if they had met earlier—if they had each other earlier in their lives. One year earlier. Two. Maybe three.

Beca had been wrong about Chloe on so many counts. She had thought Chloe was untouchable—something akin to the moon on a cloudy night. She had been so, so wrong.

Chloe is sunshine and warmth after a heavy storm. Beca can still smell the rain, but when she gazes at Chloe she just knows exactly how happy she could be. How happy she _had_ been.

Whether Chloe agrees with that assessment or not is another conversation, one that Beca isn’t sure that they’d ever have the time to talk about.

But the more pressing matter is—

“What are you _doing_ here?”

“As if I would ever let you go without saying goodbye. I know you tried to run.” There is something akin to fire in Chloe’s eyes as she steps completely into Beca’s personal space. “You’re so stupid,” Chloe declares.

“What?”

“You’re _so_ stupid.”

“I love you,” Beca blurts before she loses her nerve completely. “And I don’t know if I’ll ever stop.”

Chloe looks like she might break down into a new round of tears. Or maybe even smack Beca across the shoulder. Beca isn't sure which would be worse at this point. “You wouldn’t let me say it,” Chloe murmurs, so quietly and so distantly that it takes a few moments for Beca to process what she said.

“What?” Beca asks hoarsely.

“When I told you I liked you that night on the balcony. In December. You wouldn’t let me say it to you. I thought that it was just something that you never wanted me to say because it was...it wasn’t something you wanted.”

“Chloe, _no_. It’s me. I—I couldn’t—” Her words feel jumbled. Nothing but a mess of tears. This is why she had made that dumb song. A mix of _Make You Feel My Love_ and _Stay With Me_. She had been holding on to it for _so fucking long_ that it practically burned a hole into every surface it laid on as Beca contemplated when she could have even given it to Chloe.

“I listened to it,” Chloe says, sounding a little angry. It takes everything in Beca to not say that she figured as much based on Chloe’s expression. “I know you said to wait. I know you said to wait because you were planning on running away.”

“I’m not,” Beca tries weakly. 

Chloe steps forward to kiss Beca, pulling all her unspoken words into one gasping breath. Like every kiss they shared before, this one is no different with one exception: while Beca had always felt like Chloe was enveloping her into a shared space, this one feels selfish somehow. Like Chloe is taking parts of her for safekeeping.

To remember.

It reminds Beca of how she had spent long minutes memorizing the sound of Chloe’s heartbeat at least once every morning she had woken up before Chloe.

 _Choose me_.

Her hand scrambles up to press against Chloe’s chest, where she knows her heart is, but she can barely feel it over her own trembles and nerves. It is frustrating and Beca almost pulls away before Chloe is clasping her hand to her chest tightly and taking a deep breath, like she knows exactly what Beca needs in that moment.

Their kiss slows from the bruising, passionate pace, now nothing more than the ghost of Beca’s lips against Chloe’s. A parting breath.

Something for both of them.

Chloe’s eyes are impossibly clear as Beca pulls back, entirely past the point she should have walked through security; entirely past the point she should have been at her gate. “I love you, too.”

They loved each other. Love. Will love. Had loved.

"We did this so out of order," Beca blurts, wondering where that stupid thought had come from. She finds that it is true, though, no matter how they cut anything. It wasn't like something she had _planned_ , to fall in love with Chloe Beale during the last year of her mandatory education sentencing.

Chloe's lips twitch, as if she might laugh or smile, but she doesn't. Not really. She rests her forehead against Beca's, breathing so serenely and calmly as if she isn't fulfilling every last romantic movie trope that Beca has had to hear from Jesse over the past four years. Unaware that she has stolen Beca's breath and heart for the rest of time. 

"Wait for me."

"Chloe..."

“Wait for me,” Chloe continues, voice barely above a whisper. “I’ll find you.”

Despite the ache in Beca’s chest, she can't help but smile at the thought. It feels a little daunting knowing that they aren't exactly _together_ —pre-break-up, post-break-up, and all—and probably won’t be for the foreseeable future...yet it still feels like something written into the stars that they would find their way back together eventually. And Beca doesn't even believe in that crap. Not really, at least. Not before Chloe Beale.

Like she is reading Beca’s mind, Chloe’s smile begins to grow as well. A small, hesitant little twitch of her lips, offset by the tears gathering in her eyes.

And, god, Beca wanted to look at that smile forever.

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi to me on [tumblr](https://isthemusictoblame.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/tizzleshizzle).


End file.
